Biomed.
Lib.
HB
863
D849L
1892
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
THE
^ ^ Xi^e anb Mvitinos
OF
THOMAS R. MALTHUS;
BY
CHAS. R. DRYSDALE, M.D
London ;
Oko. Standktno, 7 X- 9 FiNRiu'in- Stt^i:i-:t, Fj.O.
Skconi) l.!r)i'riON.- Is9:2.
Since 1877, when the Lord Chief Justice of England in his cliarge to
the jury pronounced the discovery of Malthus to be an irj-efragable
truth, a vast amount of literature has appeared upon the population
question. The conclusion come to by many of the most recent writers
has been in accord with that pithy expression of John Stuart Mill,
where he sa^-s: "Every one has a right to live. We will suppose this
granted. But no one has a right to bring children into life to be sup-
ported by other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first of
these rights must renounce all pretension to the last." Mr. Cotter
Morison, a distinguished writer, says, in his work entitled The Service
of Man: ''The criminality of producing children whom one has no
reasonable probabilit}" of being able to keep, must in time be seen in its
true light, as one of the most unsocial and selfish proceedings of which
a man nowadays is capable. If only the devastating torrent of children
could be arrested for a few j-ears, it would bring untold relief." Sir
William Windej^er, of New South Wales, in a judgment delivered in
1888, concerning a Malthusian work, says: " It is idle to preach to the
masses the necessity of deferred marriage and of a celibate life during
tlie heyday of passion. . . To use and not abuse, to direct and con-
trol in its operation any God-given faculty, is the true aim of man, the
true object of all morality." The Rev. 'Mv. Whatham, in a pamphlet
entitled Neo-Mcdthitsianisni, says: "It becomes the duty of every
thoughtful man and woman to think out some plan to stop or even
check this advancing tide of desolation ; and the only plan, to my
thinking, that is at all workable is artificial prevention of child-birth."
Professor Mantegazza, Senator of Italy, says, in his Elements of Hygiene,
to those affected with hereditary diseases : " Love, but do not beget
children." The Rev. Mr. Haweis says, in Winged Words : " Over-
population is one of the problems of the age. The old blessing of "in-
crease and multiply,' suitable for a sj)arsely peopled land, has become
the great curse of our crowded centres." INIr. ^Montague Cookson sa3's :
'' The limitation of the family is as mucli the duty of married persons
as the observance of chastity is the duty of those who remain un-
married." Professor Huxley, the Bishop of Manchester, Mr. Leonard
Courtney, Dr. William Ogle, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Have
all recently endorsed the truth of the jNIalthusian law of population,
which, as Mr. Elley Finch has truly said, "is. in company with the
Newtonian law of gravitation, the most important discovery ever made."
CHARLES R. DRYSDALE, M.D.
.?.? Sackville -street, Piccadllli/. T.nvdon, Tr,
October, 1H92.
Lie ■
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS r^i'L/qi^.
OP
??^
THOMAS R. MALTHUS.
A GREAT deal has been said in Courts of Law during the
last two years about the Malthusian principle of popula-
tion. The Lord Chief Justice of England has pronounced that
it is an irrefragable truth, and that all parties who have studied
such questions know, since the days of the Eev. T. R. Malthus,
that the great cause of indigence is the tendency that popu-
lation has to increase faster than agriculture can furnish food.
And yet we have serious doubts whether one out of a thousand
of the population of the British Islands knows who Mr. Malthus
was, or, indeed, whether he was a Roman, or a citizen of mo-
dern Europe, at all. It is, therefore, we are convinced, very
important to let his countrymen know that Thomas Robert
Malthus was an Englishman ; that he was a denizen of the
19th century ; and that he lived most part of his life in the
neighbourhood of London,
Thomas Robert Malthus was bom at the Rookery, near
Dorking, in Surrey, in 1766. Those who are interested in the
matter will do well to make a pilgrimage, as we have done, to
the romantic birth-place of the discoverer of the law of popu-
lation, the greatest (if we measure discoveries by their effect
on human happiness) ever made. Malthus' father was an able
man, a friend and correspondent of the noble and unfortunate
J. J. Rousseau, and one of his executors. Thomas Robert was
his second son, and, as a boy, evinced so much ability that his
father kept him at home and superintended his education him-
self. The son repaid his father's care, and had awakened in
him that spirit of independence and love of truth which were
ever afterwards the characteristics of his mind. He had two
tutors, in addition to his father, both men of genius — Richard
Graves and Gilbert Wakefield — the former the author of the
*' Spiritual Quixote," the latter the correspondent of Fox, and
well known in his day as a violent democratic writer and
politician.
Z THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
In 1784, when 22 years of age, T. E. Malthus weni, to Cam
bridge ; and, in 1797, became a Fellow of Jesus Collegb
After this he took orders, and for a time officiated in a small
parish near his father's house, in Surrey. In 1798, appeareu
his first printed work, which may be seen in the British Mu-
seum. It is entitled " An Essay on the Principle of Population,
as it affects the future Improvement of Society ; with Eemarks
on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, Mr. Condorcet, and other
Writers.''
The writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, from whom these
details of Malthus' life are taken, informs us that the book was
received with some surprise, and excited considerable atten-
tion, as beinoj an attempt to overturn the jDrevalent theory of
political optimism, and to refute, upon philosoiDhical principles,
the speculations then so much in vogue, as to the indefinite
perfectibility of human institutions. In this remarkable essay
the general principle of population, which Wallace, Hume,
and others had very distinctly enunciated before him, though
without foreseeing the consequences that might be deduced
from it, was clearly expounded ; and some of the important
conclusions to which it leads in regard to the probable im-
provement of human society were likewise stated and explained;
but his illustrations were not sufficient, and he, therefore,
sought in travel further confirmation of his theories.
In 1799 he visited Norway, Sweden, and Eussia, and, after
the peace of Amiens, France ; in which countries he busily
collected all the data he could bearing upon his researches.
In 1815 he was api3ointed to the professorship of political
economy and modern history at Haileybury, near London,
which chair he occupied until his death in 1834, at the age of
70. He left behind him one son and one daughter. The son
is, we believe, still alive, or was so a few years ago.
The account given by Mr. Malthus of the way in which he
discovered the law of population is to this effect. His father,
Mr. Daniel Malthus, a man of romantic and somewhat san-
guine character, had espoused warmly the doctrines of the
great writers Condorcet and Godwin, with respect to the per-
fectibility of man, to which the sound sense of the son was
alwaj'^s opposed ; and when the subject had been very fre-
quently discussed between them, and the son had always
objected to Godwin's views, on account of the tendency of
population to increase faster than subsistence, he was asked by
his father to put down in writing his views on this point. The
result was the Essay on Population ; and his father was so much
OF THOMAS R. MALTHU8. 8
struck with the value of the arguments, that he recommended
his son to publish it.
" In the first edition of this work he principally deals with
the views of Condorcet and Godwin ; but on his return from
the Continent, where he had collected ample materials, the
state and prospects of the poor became the prominent features
of the second edition, which appeared in two volumes, in 1805.
The latter years of the life of Mr. Malthus were passed in
the midst of his family, in the performance of his professional
-and professorial duties, and in the editing of the various editions
of his work and other treatises on political economy. In pro-
portion as the views enunciated in his Essay on Population
l3ecame known, his fame was extended. Most of the statesmen
of his time, and the whole of the eminent political economists
of Great Britain, adopted his opinions ; and thus the waj^ was
prepared for the adoption of a better system of poor-law relief
than the one which at that time was ruining England. On the
•Continent, too, and indeed wherever science extended, his views
were adopted by the foremost writers on political economy.
He was elected a member of the most eminent scientific
societies abroad, such as the Institute of France and the Royal
Academy of Berlin. At home, he founded the Political
Economy Club and the Statistical Society.
In the bther departments of the science of Political Economy
Malthus was a distinguished writer. He was, in company with
Dr. West, a promulgator of the theory of rent, first mooted, it
seems, by a Scotchman, Dr. Anderson, a contemporary of Adam
Smith. Ricardo, the eminent political economist, has acknow-
ledged his deep obligations to Malthus, for his exposition of
this theory.
The great Principle of Population has been examined care-
fully and accepted as a splendid discovery by the master minds
of all countries since the discoverer's death in 1834. To say
that it is looked upon as axiomatic by the two Mills, by
Ricardo, Senior, Cairnes, Alexander Bain, Gamier, Bertillon,
Favvcett, William Ellis, and William Hunter, is to say that its
truth has been fully proved to the ablest thinkers on social
science and on political economy that this and other European
States have produced.
^ It was, before the days of Malthus, the almost universal be-
lief of mankind that the wealth of a country was in proportion
to its population. Statesmen, poets, and philanthropists were
<Jonstant in their endeavour to secure as rapid a multiplication
•of the citizens as possible : and, up till the publication of bit
% THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
essay — indeed, long after that event, it was tlie custom in many
European States for the Government to give prizes to such
parents as had given birth to and reared a more than averagely
large family of children. Such a law, indeed, was not abro-
gated until about 25 years ago in Sardinia.
Mr. Malthus clearly exposed the eiTor of such teaching. He
showed that, such is the immense power of increase in the
human family, it is probable that, were food plentiful enough,
population might double in some fifteen years, or even less.
With incredible assiduity he read and examined ancient history
and the statistics of European countries and their colonies, for
the confirmation of his theory. He found, for example, that
after the great pestilences which had from time to time ravaged
European states, the surviving population had been so well
fed and housed that it had been enabled to replace the blanks
left by deaths usually in a very few years — in twenty years
in several instances.
Taming to the colonies of Great Britain in the United
States, Malthus confirmed what the great pioneer of all
progress in political economy, x\dam Smith, had noted, namely^
that the colonists of those States had doubled since their settle-
ment in considerably less than twenty-five years in some cases,
without taking into account any fresh immigration. In an
article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, written by Malthus,
he gives most accuratelj'- the figures of the doubling of the
population of the United States from the year 1790 until 1820 ;
and shows, from statistics, that very few immigrants had arrived
from Europe during this period. Making ample allowance
for the contingent for such immigration, Malthus showed that,
from 1790 to 1815, the population of the States had more than
/.doubled. Hence he was led to the following expression : —
* " Population, when unchecked, goes on doubling every twenty -
yf five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio."
He next shows that the tendency of agricultural produce fit
^ for the food of man is to increase very much more slowly than
yjl man could increase. This has been termed the ^'law of agri-
1 cultural increase," and is very easily understood by taking ao
example. Let us grant that the average quantity of wheal
that can be grown at present on an acre of ground in England
is thirty bushels. It would be clearly impossible to suppose that.
in 25 years 60 bushels per acre could be produced ; in 50 years,
120 bushels, and so on. Whereas, the tendency of population
lo double in from 12 to 25 years is clear enough, when it is
remembered that the human female commences to be capable-
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 5
of reproduction at about fifteen and continues so until forty-
five, in this climate. Were European women to marry as
•early as the Hindoo women do, there would be a possibility,
if food were forthcoming, of a doubling of the population in
«ome fifteen years or less.
Mr. Malthus closely examined the statistics of European
nations when he wrote in 1805. Before the commencement
<of this century, he found that the time taken for doubling of
the populations of Europe was often as great as some five
liundred years. This remark had been anticipated by Adam
•Smith, who had all the materials, had he sufficiently reflected
■on them, to have written accurately on the Population Question,
.since he also was acquainted with the rapid doubling of civi-
lised peoples, when they had been conveyed to new and fertile
-colonies such as the United States. Here, then, was the con-
clusion of Malthus, which is perfectly obvious when it is clearly
stated. Whenever population, in Europe or elsewhere, fails to
double itself as rapidly as it does in new countries, it must be
•checked in some way or other. Proceeding a little further, he
Ids that it must either be checked by there being fewer births
>r a greater number of deaths. Whatever tends to produce a
':^maller number of births is included by Malthus among the
Ipreventwe checks to population : whatever leads to a greater
number of deaths, among the positive checks.
His travels through Europe were mainly directed towards
"the inquiry as to what kind of check was prevalent in each
European state. In ancient times, he saw that the positive
^checks to population had everywhere extensively prevailed.
Plagues and famines, with war and infanticide, had been the
-checks in Greece and Eome, as now in China and Hindostan.
Jn the Europe of his day, all of these positive checks existed,
in greatly diminished proportions, indeed, but still they were
far from unknown. The extreme prevalence of celibacy,
liowever, struck him in all the civilised states of Europe which
Jie then visited. He noticed that, in many parts of the Con-
tinent, where the death-rate was lower than elsewhere, it was
the custom for the women to marry very late in life. In one
•canton of Switzerland, where comfort and longevity were most
notable, Malthus found, on enquiry, that it was the custom for
■the spinsters to delay their bridal day till long after the age of
thirty. On the other hand, wherever marriages were early,
and the birth-rate was high, he found on investigation that
the death-rate was also above the average.
From this experience of his, he was led to the conclusion
6 THE LIIE AND WRITINGS
that early marriage, as a rule, was certain to lead to poverty
and the positive checks to population ; and, therefore, in hi&
practical maxims for improving the condition of the poorer
classes, he looked forward solely to the exercise of that celibacy^
which he had found so often accompanied by long life and
material comforts.
Had Mr. Malthus lived at this moment, he would have
been aware of the remarkable fact, that the French peasantry
of modem days have, simply from experience and without any
theory, become acquainted with the results of his enquiries,,
that a rapid increase of births leads inevitably to poverty and
early death. To quote from the most celebrated of French
statists, M. Maurice Block, the artizans of towns, and peasant
proprietors of whole districts of France, are accustomed tO'
limit the size of their families to two children ; and thus, al-
though France is the most noted for its number of married
couples of all European States, it is also the country in all
Europe which is the least rapid in the increase of its popula-
tion. The population check in France, then, Malthus, had he
lived, would have found to be, not celibacy, but the voluntary
bmilaiion of families, in the midst of a married and most moral
and domestic community. The great philanthropist, who was-
so distinguished for his charming temper and amiability, could
not have failed, we may rest assured, to have, with J. S. Mill,
Garnier, and Sismondi, given the preference to the moderrk
French checks to population over all others.
In closing this chapter, we should like to refer to a few ad-
ditional biographical circumstances of Malthus' life. They
have been supplied by Mr. Eobert Porter, of Beeston, Nott'5., a
gentleman well known as an admirer of the great discoverer,,
and as an expositor of his views. "The Reverend Henry
Malthus," Mr. Porter writes, in February, 1879, •* the only
son of Thomas Robert Malthus, lives at Effingham. The
only daughter, Emily, was living at Bathwick Hill Villa,.
Bath, some time back. She married Captain Pringle. I have-
many letters from her, as also from her mother, who was
living with her in 1862, in her 86th year, when she had
a photograph taken from the family portrait, and sent to me
with a scrap of his MS. handwriting. I send you this to
see and peruse. I wrote to Mrs. Pringle about the memoir of
her Father in his Political Econoniy, saying there was much of
Mr. Daniel Malthus in it, but nothing about his mother, from
whom I thought Mr. Malthus had received his best qualities.
In letter 3 you will see the reply, and I think will be in-
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 7
terested to read it. Dr. Anderson really discovered the Law of
Eent, as j^ou may see in Vol. 6 of I'he Bee^ pp. 292 — 300. —
1791."
The information given by Mrs. Pringle, and referred to in
the above letter to Mr. Robert Porter, is as follows. After
referring to Mr. Ellis' teachings in the Friend of the PcopUy
written about the year 1860, she speaks of the personal ap-
pearance of her father as follows: " The likeness (photograph
sent) is excellent, and to enable you to form a complete idea
of his personal appearance, I must tell you that his complexion
was fair, with light and curling hair, led whiskers, and bright
darkish blue eyes. His height was five feet eleven inches,
and a very well-formed figure." Another granddaughter of
Mrs. Malthus, the mother of Thomas Robert, says that Daniel
Malthus, the father, although refined, was a selfish man.
His wife was devoted to him, and although not a talented
woman, was accomplished, and educated her own daughter
without a governess. All her children were devoted to her,
especially her eldest son. Thomas Robert was, perhaps, more
attached to his father ; but his mother's amiabilit}^ descended
to him, for he was never known to say a harsh word of any-
one, although more attacked than any writer has perhaps ever
been. It ajjpears that Malthus died, not of heart disease, but
of bronchitis. His mother's maiden name was Graham, and
she was of an old Scotch family. Here is one sentence to de-
pict her character: — "In short, I imagine her gentle, unob-
trusive, loving, romantic, and perfectly unseltish ; but not the
sort of person to form her suns' characters, though to attract
their affections.'*
THE LIFE AND WHITINGS
CHAPTER II.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE *' ESSAY ON THE PRINCirLE
OF POPULATION."
COMPARATIVELY few students of Political Economy at
the present day appear to read Malthus' celebrated Essay
in the original. This, in our opinion, is a great mistake. That
work is as readable now as it was when it attracted such well-
merited attention at the commencement of this century ; and
the statistics given by the learned author become even more
valuable than ever, owing to the important additions made to
them of. recent years by the various modern writers on Social
Economy.
The third edition of Malthus' essay, which appeared in
1806, is now before us : and consists of two volumes of about
one thousand pages in all, of large type, full of the most inter-
esting accounts ever given of the manners and customs of the
' different nations of ancient and modern tmes. The first vo-
lume is divided into two books. In Book I. there are fourteen
chapters, the first of which states the Law of Population, or
the te7idency which population has to increase more rapidh^ than
the means of subsistence. The second chapter treats of the
general checks to population, and the way in which these
operate. Then come three most interesting chapters^ on the
checks to poj^ulation among savage nations, followed by one
on those obtaining among the ancient inhabitants of Northern
Europe. Chapter seven gives an account of the checks exist-
ing among modern pastoral nations ; and this is followed by
an account of the checks in Africa, and Northern and Southern
Siberia. Then follows a most interesting account of the brutal
checks to population in Turkey, and the lamentable starvation
checks of Hindostan and China. Book L ends with chapters
on the checks to population among the ancient Greeks and
Romans.
In Book 11. there is a most important account given by Mr.
Malthus of the results of his extensive travels in Europe, in
1799 and after years, with details of the checks to population
existing in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Switzerland,
France, England, Scotland, and Ireland.
OP THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 1&
If those persons who at present think that the Malthusian
law of human increase has been found by subsequent investi-
.^ation to be erroneous, could only be induced to read Mr.
Malthus' essay in the original, they would soon find that all
these objections have been anticipated in that celebrated work,
and perhaps acknowledge, with Mr. J. S. Mill and other econo-
mists, that the truth is "axiomatic,'' or no longer requiring
•discussion. In the last pamphlet, indeed, which we have seen,
•dedicated to one of the most deservedly jDopular of modern
British authors, Thomas Carlyle, the writer, like Mr. Carlyle
himself, sj^eaks as if the law of Malthus had been refuted ; but,
■as usual in such cases, it is clear that the writer has not the
least idea of. what the celebrated Essay on Population was
written to prove.
In his first chapter, Malthus observes that Euler, a great
mathematician, had calculated that, on the supposition of such
-a moderate amount of mortality as one in 36 (which is con-
•fiiderably higher than our present mortality of one in 42 in
England), and with the further supposition of the births being
to the deaths as three to one (a ratio which seems nearly to hold
^•ood, at present, in New Zealand), the period of doubling a
population would be only 12f years ; and Sir William Petty,
in his work on Political Arithmetic, supposed a doubling to be
possible in some ten 3^ears.
Malthus compares this te?idency with the actual increase of
man in such countries as China and Japan. He observes that
it may fairly be doubted whether the best directed efforts of
human industry could double the agricultural produce of China
even once, in a7iy number of years. The difference between
the time of doubling, which has taken place of late in
«ome twenty or thirty years, in North America, and in our
Australian colonies, when compared with the slow increase
•of the Chinese population, gives the most complete view of
•the case that can be obtained.
In countries which are naturally healthy, and where the
preventive check is found to prevail, too, with considerable force,
■the positive check, as Malthus observes, will prevail very little,
and the mortality will be small ; but in every country some of
the checks are and will always continue to be, in constant
operation : so that mankind has only a choice of evils, for we
•cannot possibly escape from sof?ie of the population checks,
which are inevitable.
In his third chapter our author reviews the population checks
in the lowest stage of human society ; and shows how impos-
10 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
sible it is for such unfortunate peoples as the natives of the-
Tierra del Fuego, or of Van Diemen's Land, to increase rapidly
in numbers, owing to their extreme ignorance of the laws of
nature. In New Zealand, Captain Cook found the checks to
population to be war, and starvation so great as to prompt to-
cannibalism, in a countrj'- where, as it is at present colonized
by a civilized people, the deaths seem not to exceed fifteen per
1,000 annually, and population doubles in about twenty years
or less, without counting immigrants.
In Mr. Malthus' day, there still existed large numbers of
those unfortunate races of American Indians, which are now so
rapidly disappearing in the modern *' struggle for existence"
with civilised Europeans. Then, as now, these tribes lived
principally by hunting and fishing, most narrow modes of
subsistence. The mortality of infants among such tribes was
always enormous, and the Jesuit missionaries mentioned how
that the Indians of South America were subject to perpetual
diseases for which they knew no remedy ; scarcely ever did-
the individuals of such tribes attain to an advanced age ; and
the checks to population among them were chiefly of the posi-
tive kind — plagues, starvation, brutal wars, and disease. The-
North American Indians, too, lived in such a state of filth and
over-crowding in their huts, that every infectious disease car-
ried off vast numbers. Cannibalism, according to Captain Cook^.
as seen in New Zealand and other islands, originated in the
fearful privations experienced by such peoples when their
numbers were pressing on the food supplies.
And here let us quote Malthus' own words, — *' It is not that
the American tribes have never increased sufficiently to render
the pastoral or agricultural state necessary to them ; but, from
some cause or other, they have not adopted in any great degree
these more plentiful modes of procuring subsistence, and there-
fore cannot have increased so as to become populous. If
hunger alone could have prompted the savage tribes of America
to such a change in their habits, I do not conceive that there
would have been a single nation of hunters and fishers re-
maining; but, it is evident, that some fortunate train of
circumstances, in addition to this stimulus, is necessary for the
purpose.'^
In chapter V., our author gives a curious account of how
population was checked in the islands of the South Seas. It i».
among such islands as these (and, indeed, the British islands^
in ancient times resembled them greatly), that we trace the
origin of many of the singular institutions destined to retard
OF THOMAS R. MAT/l'MUS. 11
the rapid increase of mankind — cannibalism, late marriages,,
the conisecration of virginity, and ferocious punishments against
8uch women as reproduce the species at too early an age. Cap-
tain Cook found such a constant state of warfare existing among
the various tribes in New Zealand, that each village in its turn
applied to him to assist them in destroying the others. In his
third voyage he adds that warlike ferocity is so constant *' that
one hardly ever finds a New Zealander off his guard, either by
night or day."
In Otaheite and the Society Islands, again, where the size of
the islands was too small, and the knowledge of navigation
acquired b}^ the islanders too scanty to make it possible for
population to increase rapidly, all sorts of sufferings were seen
among the poorer classes of the people ; the richer classes,
however, seemed, according to Captain Cook, to check their
own increase by having recourse to the fearful practice of in-
fanticide, to an enormous and unparalleled extent. Even with
these checks, however, population, in the South Sea Islands, oc-
casionally pressed so hard on subsistence that animal food be-
came very scarce in certain seasons, and such destructive wars-
ensued that Captain Vancouver, on visiting Otaheite, in 1777,
and again in 1791, found that most of his friends of 1777 were
dead, having been killed in the wars. Prostitution, and de-
struction of female infants, were extremely common in Otaheite
in Captain Cook's time.
In taking a general review of that department of human
society, classed under the name of savage life, the only advan-
tage Malthus notices is the possession of a greater degree or
leisure by the mass of the people, than that possessed by those
of civilised countries. " There is less work to be done, and^
consequently, there is less labour. When we consider the in«
cessant toil to which the lower classes, in civilised societies,,
are condemned, this cannot but appear to us a striking ad-
vantage ; but it is probably overbalanced by greater disad-
vantages."
This remark of Mr. Malthus shows us, to a certain extent, on.
what J. J. Rousseau founded his belief as to the superior hap-
piness of the state of nature over the civilised. Had Eousseau
read the Essay on Population, he could not, w^e believe, have-
failed to perceive that the evils of civilisation are almost solely
due to the universal want of knowledge of the Population Law.
The late marriages, and prostitution, so bitterly inveighed
against by that author, are merely the sorrowful population
checks of most modern civilised nations, that have passed into-
12 TUK LIFE AND WRITINGS
the pastoral and agricultural stages of society, and have not
jet proceeded far enough to control the enormous fecundity of
the race by less painful and more thoughtful expedients than
those which Jean Jaques Rousseau so clearly perceived and
so powerfully denounced in the French society of the reign
-of Louis XV.
After speaking of the positive checks to population which
"have been so universal among savage nations, Mr. Malthus
j)roceeds in chapter vi. to treat of the checks which prevented
increase among the ancient inhabitants of the North of Europe.
Astonishment has often been expressed at the the hordes of
warriors that, at various periods of the decay of the Eoman
Empire, were poured down upon it from the Northern na-
tions. Mr. Malthus explains, with great clearness, that,
wherever the customs of such nations as composed the
immigrants were such as to conduce to health and early
marriage, the immense fecundity of the race fully accounts
for these crowds of immigrants so rapidly succeeding each
other until the destruction of Rome ensued. Machiavel, in
the beginning of his History of Florence, says : " The people
who inhabit the northern ]3arts that lie between the Rhine
and the Danube, living in a healthful and prolific climate,
often increase to such a degree, that vast numbers of them are
forced to leave their country and go in search of new habita-
tions. These emigrations proved the destruction of the
Roman Empire."
There can be no doubt that this is a true account of the
Tvay in which poverty and over - rapid reproduction cause
-emigration in ancient and modern times ; and we cannot help
regarding the present warlike policy of England and Germany
-as signs of a growing over-population in both of these States,
which tempts the proletaire members of the governing classes
to seek ever fresh territory, and makes the other classes of
society so tolerant of such unjust conduct in their rulers. In
iact, it may be truly said that the adoption of neo-Malthusian
views is the only really revolutionary measure, and the only
safeguard of nations against wars of conquest or intestinal
^dissension.
In chapter vii. Malthus speaks of the checks to population
among modern pastoral nations. Pastoral nations, although
not so poor as hunting nations, are, of course, far more unable
,to acquire wealth than nations that have adopted agricultural
pursuits. Hence, population increases but slowly in such
communities, and they are often on the verge of famine for
OF THOMAS R. MALTHU8. 13
lengthened periods. Volney, in his travels, says, that the
pastoral tribes of the iVrabian desert deny that the religion of
Mahomet was made for them. " For how," they say, *' can
we perform ablutions when we have no water ; how can we
give alms when we have no riches ; or what occasion can
there be to fast during the month of Kamadan, when we fast,
all the year ? "
And yet it seems that in Arabia, as elsewhere, the direct
social encouragements to population are very great. A
Mahometan is taught that one of the great duties of man is to-
procreate children to glorify the Creator. But, as Mr. Malthus
truly says, *' While the Arabs retain their present manners,
and the country remains in its present state of cultivation, the
promise of paradise to every man who had ten children would
but little increase their numbers, though it might greatly
increase their misery.''
The checks to jDopulation existing in Africa seem to be
chiefly of the positive kind. Incessant warfare, with death by
famine or epidemics, are described by the early travellers on
that Continent, Park and Bruce, as carrying off whole tribes.
Park states that, independently of violent causes, the struggle
for food is so great in most African states, that longevity is
rare among the negroes. At forty, most of them become
grayhaired and covered with wrinkles, and but few of them
survive the age of fifty-five or sixty. There was, in his day,
but little difficult}^ in obtaining slaves in times of famire in
Africa, as even free negroes were often so pressed with huager
as to entreat, according to Dr. Laidley, to be put on his slave-
chain, to save them from starvation. Bruce reports that, in
many of the tribes, women begin to be mothers at the age of
eleven : and to such a life of privation and care does this rapid
reproduction lead, that he speaks of the women in some States
near Abyssinia as becoming, at the age of twenty-two, '' more
wrinkled and deformed by age, than an European woman is
at sixty."
Mr. Malthus, after a very curious account of the checks to
population in Northern and Southern Siberia, then passes on
in chapter x., to treat of the Turkish Dominions and Persia,
and his remarks are especially interesting to our modern
politicians. The fundamental cause of the low rate of increase
of population in Turkey, he truly remarks, is undoubtedly the
nature of the Turkish government. Its tyranny, its feebleness,
its bad laws, and worse administration of them, with the
consequent insecurity of property, throw such obstacles in the
14 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
way of agriculture, that the means of subsistence are necessarily
decreasing yearly, and with them, of course, the number of
people. It is calculated at the present day that population
would double only once in 555 years in Turkey, owing to the
positive checks caused by its wretched government. The
population of modern Turkey is about 28 millions, or only
some 16 jDersons per square mile ; and, in 1876, it was stated
in governmental reports that the population of the empire was
fast declining, and its cultivated lands falling into the con-
dition of deserts. In Europe, as in Asia, we are informed by
Malthus, it was the maxim of Turkish policy, originating in
the feebleness of government, and the fear of popular tumults,
to keep the price of corn low in all the considerable towns.
" When Constantinople is in want of provisions, ten
provinces are jDerhaps famished for a supply. At Damascus,
during the scarcity of 1784, the people paid only one penny
farthing a j)Ound for their bread, whilst the peasants in the
villages were actually dying with hunger."
As to the checks to population in Persia, the dreadful con-
vulsions to which that country has been subject for many
hundred years must have been fatal to her agriculture. The
periods ot repose from external wars and internal commotions
Iiave been short and few, and even during the times of pre-
found peace, the frontier provinces were constantly subject to
the ravages of the Tartars. Hence the slow increase.
One of the most valuable parts of the Essay oft Population is
that wherein Mr. Malthus treats of the checks to population
in Hindostan and Tibet. In Hindostau, according to the
ordinance of Menu, the Indian legislator, marriage is very
greatly encouraged, and a male heir is considered as an object
of the first importance. Hindoo maidens are married at the
age of eleven, and even younger : and become mothers before
they attain the age of twelve. For such reasons, Hindostan
has been one of the most noted countries in the world for
devastations, epidemics, and famines. The lower classes have
for centuries been reduced to the extremost poverty, and
compelled to adopt the most frugal and scanty mode of sub-
sistence. Whilst the average annual income per head in
England was calculated, by Mr. Henry Fawcett in 1870, at
about some eighteen pounds ; in Hindostan, it was lately
stated by Mr. J. Bright, that about two or three pounds
sterling for food is all a Hindoo peasant gets. And, as Lord
Derby remarked in his admirable Rochdale speech in 1879,
the people of Hindostan seem to be a marked example of
OP THOBIAS R. BIALTHUS. 15
iiow very low a standard of living a nation may people
•down to.
Recent years liave made us familiar with the tales of
Indian famines ; but there is nothing novel in these in the
history of that long over-peopled country. One of the
Jesuits cited by Malthus says that it is impossible for him to
•describe the misery to which he was witness during the two
years' famine in 1737 and 1738, and another Jesuit writes,
•** Every year we baptize 'a thousand children, whom their
parents can no longer feed, or who, being likely to die, are
sold to us by their mothers in order to get rid of them."
Tibet, it seems, according to Malthus, is perhaps the only
country where habits tending to repress population are, or
were, universally encouraged by the government. Celibacy
is there much encouraged among government employ s, and
the number of monasteries and nunneries is considerable.
•* But, even among the laity, the business of population goes on
very coldly. All the brothers of a family, without any re-
striction of age or of numbers, associate their fortunes with
one female, who is chosen by the eldest and considered as
the mistress of the house.'*' It is evident that this custom,
combined with the celibacy of such a numerous body of
•ecclesiastics, must operate, says Malthus, in the most powerful
manner as a preventive check to population. Yet, according
to Mr. Turner's account, it appears that the population of
Tibet presses on the means of subsistence. Tibet, in Mr.
Turner's time, seems to have suffered, as England now does,
and as we hear that even our wealthy colonies of Victoria and
New South Wales do, from a set of paupers created by an
extremely unwise system of out-door relief — a system which
but too often manufactures the very paupers it wishes to
relieve.
Mr. Malthus' account of the Checks to Population in
China and Japan, contained in chapter xij. of his work' is
one of the most important contributions to the question con-
ceivable. His authorities are Duhalde's History of China and
Sir G. Staunton's Account of his Embassy to China. Accord-
ing to the former author, writing in 1738, the population of
China was then estimated as at least three hundred and thirty-
three millions. At present China is said to contain some four
hundred millions.
The causes of the great populousness of China are, according
to Malthus, its advantageous position as to climate and irriga-
tion, and the very great encouragement given to agriculture
IS THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
by the monarclis of that nation. The Emperor himself e very-
year, to set an example, ploughs a few ridges of land, and the-
mandarins of every city perform the same ceremony. The
whole surface of the empire is, with trifling exceptions, dedi-
cated to the production of food for man alone. There is no-
, meadow, and very little pasture, and no waste land. Even
the soldiers of the Chinese army are mostly employed in.
agriculture.
The extraordinary encouragements given to marriage also-
contribute to make China more populous in proportion to the
extent of its territory than any other country. The permission
given by parents to abandon their children, which exists in
China, is shown by Sir G. Staunton to facilitate marriage, and
cause even greater over-population than in more civilized
states where such barbarities are not permitted. The effect of
this early marriage and rapid peopling is to subdivide pro-
perty ; and it is a common remark among the Chinese, that
fortunes seldom continue considerable in the same family
beyond the third generation. One of the Jesuits, writing on
China, saj^s : ''The richest and most flourishing empire of the
world is, in one sense, the poorest and most miserable of all.
Four times as much territory would be necessary to put the:
inhabitants at their ease.''
It cannot be said in China, as it often is said in Europe, thai
the poor are idle, and might gain a subsistence if they would,
work. The labours and efforts of these poor peoiDle are beyond
conception. " A Chinese will pass whole days in digging the
earth, sometimes up to his knees in water, and in the evening
is happy to eat a little spoonful of rice, and to drink the in-
sipid water in which it is boiled." This is the remark of a
Jesuit: and although it is evidently an exaggeration, since
modern researches on diet show that such food could not main-
tain animal existence, it shows what miseries are caused by
the peopling down to such a low standard of comfort.
" The procreative power,'* says Malthus, " would, with as
much facility, double in twenty-five years the population of
China, as that of any of the States of America." We can
readily sympathise, then, with the alarm felt by our fellow-
countrymen in Australasia and California, at the possible^
invasion of the untold millions which China could, with the
greatest facility, pour into them. It is. for this reason, that
the Legislature of New South Wales has quite recently, by a
large majority, passed a Bill to stem the current of Chinese
It v/ill be for the ultimate advantage of the-
OF THOMAS R. MALTHU8. 17
tuman race that nations with such a low standard of comfort
as the Chinese, should learn that the}^ must imitate the more
prosperous nations in prudential restraint before they can be-
come entitled to claim to become citizens of such countries.
We have lately understood the magnitude of a Chinese
famine, where millions of unfortunate people are reduced to
misery and death at once, from the failure of the crops. Mr.
Malthus notices that, in such times of dearth, China can obtain
no assistance from her neighbours : and must perforce draw
the whole of her resources from her own provinces. When
such failures of the crops occur, the government of China pre-
tend to be very assiduous in providing schemes for the miseries
of the people ; but, in the meanwhile, hosts of unfortunates
are starved to death, since there is not enough food forthcoming,
so little margin is left, on account of the very scanty share
falling to the lot of each, even in times of plenty.
In this chapter upon China and Japan Malthus makes an
acute remark on the question, which is sometimes discussed in
this countr}^, whether the consuir.ption of grain in the manu-
facture of spirits is ever a cause of famine. The whole tend-
•ency of such a manufacture is, he asj-erts, to the contrary.
" The consumjDtion of corn, in any other way but that of ne-
cessary food, checks the population before it arrives at the
utmost limits of subsistence, and, as the grain may be with-
drawn from this particular use in the time of a scarcity, a
public granary is thus opened richer probably than could have
been formed by any other means. When such a consumption
has been once established, and has become permanent, its effect
is exactly as if a piece of land, with all the people upon it, were
removed from the country. The rest of the people would
•certainly be precisely in the same state as they were before,
neither better nor worse, in years of average plenty; but, in
a time of dearth, the produce of this land would be returned
to them, without the mouths to help them to eat it."
This fact should be borne in mind by Mr. Hoyle and other
writers on abstinence from alcohol, since the advocacj^ of a
good cause is often impeded by incorrect reasoning. " China,
without her distilleries, would certainly be more pof)ulous,"
says Malthus, *' but on a failure of the seasons would have still
less resource than she has at present, and as far as the magni-
tude of the cause would operate, would, in consequence, be
more subject to famines, and those famines would be severe."
Temperance advocates, then, should, if possible, try to sub-
stitute a less injurious luxury in the place of alcohol, which
18 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
causes so much disease ; and not forget that the poverty of
over-population is one of the great causes of drunkenness.
The principal cause of the great populousness of Japan is
doubtless the persevering industry of the inhabitants. The
checks to population in Japan have been famines, as in China
and Hindostan; but the Japanese are also more warlike than
the Chinese, and there is much less encouragement given to-
marriage in Japan than there is in China. Hence the superior
enlightenment of the JajDanese, and the intelligence which has
recently made them so alive to the benefits conferred on man«
kind by European civilization.
The all-important nature of the discovery of Malthus may
be better seen by comparing the condition of China with that
of the United States of America, than by any other exam])Je.
So far advanced have the Chinese been, for perhaps some
thousands of years, in the knowledge of the art of agriculture,
that it is now probable that the four hundred millions at pre-
sent occupying the Empii-e could not possibly double in any
given nuniber of years. Whereas, the population of the United
States has for the last century continued to double, aided by
immigration, in periods of less than twenty-five years. He
must, indeed, be gifted with a poor capacity for reason, who
does not, on comparing these two rates, at once see, that the
grand problem for our race is to prevent the instinct of re-
production from causing the terrible evils of early death, and
chronic poverty. To introduce the new Malthusian views into
China and Hindostan is the onl}^ way to cope with the famines,
infanticides, and life-long starvation of these terribly over-
peopled countries.
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. IP
CHAPTEE III.
OF THE CHECKS TO POPULATION AMOXG THE ANCIENT
GREEKS AND ROMANS.
TPIE more equal division of landed property among the
Greeks and Romans in the earlier period of their history,
must have tended greatly to encourage population, since agri-
culture, Mr. Malthus says, is the only kind of industry which
permits of multitudes existing. When, as often occurred, the
number of free citizens did not exceed ten or twenty thousand,
every individual would naturally feel the value of his own ex-
ertions, and know that, if he left his lands idle, he would be
wanting in his duty as a citizen. Hence, a great attention was
paid to agriculture in Greece. Population rapidly increased,
and colonization was common, so that the legislators of Greece
had their attention frequently called to the question of over-
population. Mr. Malthus had already shown that the practice
of infanticide, as existing in China, tended rather to increase
jDopulation, b}^ tempting people into early marriage. Solon
permitted the exposition of infimts, ]Mr. Malthus is inclined to
think, partly for the jDurpose of tempting the citizens into early
marriage, and thus increasing the population.
The great philosophers of Greece, such as Plato and Aris-
totle, are the origin of all real civilisation in succeeding ages
throughout Europe : and have, saved us from the deluge of
crude theologies, such as those of Palestine or less cultured
tribes. The so-called divine law of " Increase and multiply
and replenish the earth," and other equalW vague and mean-
ingless exclamations, are in strongest contrast with the scientific
reasoning of these masters of all the learned. Plato, in his " Ee-
public," limits the number of free citizens in his ideal state to
five thousand and forty. Procreation, he maintains, when it
proceeds too fast, may be checked, or when it goes on too
slowly, may be encouraged, by the proper distribution of hon-
ors and marks of ignominj^, and by the admonitions of the
elders to prevent or promote it according to circumstances.
Mr. John Stuart Mill evidently was of a similar oiDinion, and
his followers have advocated State intervention as a cure for
poverty. Plato also anticipated Mr. Darwin himself and the
modern Darwinians, who lay such great and just stress on the
20 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
point of the rational selection of parents. In the fifth book of
his *' Republic." he j^roposes that the most healthy men should
be joined in marriage to the finest specimens among the women,
and the inferior citizens should be paired with each other.
He next proiioses that the children of the first class alone shall
be brought up, the others not. It will doubtless be one of the
results of the neo-Malthusian movement of this day, that per-
sons afflicted with hereditary disease will not so often desire to
become parents as the healthy, whilst they may follow the
advice of Professor Mantegazza, of Florence, and " marry,
but not procreate."
From these and other passages it is clear that Plato well saw
the tendency of population to increase beyond the means of
subsistence. His expedients for checking it were not per-
missible, indeed, but the extent to which they were to be used
shows how great he perceived the difficulty to be. How back-
ward most modern nations are in speculation on such points
may be judged of by the unwillingness in Germany, England,
and even in France to look the question fairly in the face. In
Plato's time wars were nearly perpetual, and very destructive,
and if, whilst knowing this, he could still contemplate the de-
struction of the children of the jDOorer and sicklier of the
population, of all who were born when their parents were
either too young or too old, the fixing of the date of marriage
late, and the regulating the number of marriages, his reasonings
and experience must have jDointed out to him the terrible ten-
dency of population to over-pass the means of subsistence.
The great writer, Aristotle, seems to have seen the principle
even more clearly than Plato. He fixes the age of marriage
for men in his Re23ublic actually at thirty-seven ; and, even
with this late marriage, he foresaw that there might be too many
children, so that he proposed that the number allowed to each
marriage should be regulated. Aristotle accuses Plato of not
being sufficiently attentive to the population difficulty, and for
proposing to equalise property without limiting the number of
children {^De Repuh. lib. ii. ch. vi.). This may be a hint to
modern Socialists, especialty to those of Germany, where So-
cialism seems to be becoming the creed of the masses, in des-
pair at ever hearing any good thing from the military despots
now in power, Aristotle justly observes that the laws require
to be much more definite and precise in a state where property
is equalised, than in others, since, in ordinary circumstances,
an mcrease of population would only occasion a further sub-
division of landed property, whereas, m a state of communism.
OF THORIAS R. MALTHUS. 21
the supernumeraries would be altogether destitute, because the
lands, being reduced to equal elementary parts, would be in-
capable of further sub- division. He remarks that it is neces-
sary^ in all cases to regulate the number of children, so that
they may not exceed the proi3er number. In doing this, death
and steriHty are of course to be taken into account. But if,
he says in chapter vii., every person be left free to have as
many children as he pleases, the necessary consequence will be
poverty: and poverty is the mother of crime and sedition.
For these very reasons, an ancient writer on politics, Pheidon
of Corinth, introduced a regulation to limit population without
equalising wealth.
Speaking again, in book ii. ch. vii., of schemes for the equal-
isation of wealth, Aristotle says that, in order that such schemes
should be successful, it would be imperative to regulate at the
same time the size of families. For, if children multiply be-
yond the means of supporting them, the law will necessarily
be broken, and families will be suddenly reduced from
opulence to beggary, a revolution always dangerous to public
tranquility. In Sparta the landed property had passed into
the hands of a very small number of the citizens : and Aristotle
remarks that in such a state the encouragement of large families
by rewards could only have for its effect to cause an immense
accumulation of indigence, so long as a better distribution of
the land were not secured. It would have been well for
European nations up to this time, had their rulers known even
as much as Aristotle and Plato of this matter : they would have
avoided those disastrous historical incentives to procreation,
which must always have ended only in increasing indigence
and premature death.
The positive checks to population in ancient Greece and
Rome are palpable enough. Incessant wars, plagues, and
famines prevailed. Livy expresses his surprise that the Volci
and uEqui, who were so often destroyed by the Romans, should
have been able to bring fresh armies into the field, but when
the principle of population is understood, our astonishment
ceases. Such conquered tribes, like the ancient Germans,
doubtless gave full scope to the powers of procreation, and
hence were soon as numerous as before their defeat. And yet
it seems clear that the horrible practice of infanticide was
very common in Italy, for Romulus was supposed already to
have forbidden it, though the constant warfare of the Romans
must have lessened the necessity for this check. The Roman
population of Italy soon fell off when the land passed into the
22 THE LIFE AKD WRITINGS
hands of a few great proprietors, since the other classes, having
no means of selling their labour, or competing with the
numerous slaves of the wealthy, would have been entirely
starved, had it not been for the curious custom which arose of
distributing large quantities of corn gratis to the poorer or
landless citizens. No less than two hundred thousand were
thus fed in Augustus' reign, and probably had little else to
depend upon. Hence the poorer free citizens could not in-
crease, and they are said to have been constantly in the habit
of exposing their unfortunate children, since the quantity of
food doled out was not enough for a family to subsist upon.
The jus triiini lileroriwi (law for rewarding fathers of three
children) could effect nothing in such circumstances, in mak-
ing the poor give birth to large families, although it may
occasionally have tempted the landed proprietors to increase
their families. Had the poor had large numbers of children
in such a miserable state of society, they must have been born
only to die of starvation, since the food doled out by the
Government was not sufficient to feed all.
Positive laws to encourage marriage, says Mr. Malthus^
enacted on the urgency of the occasion, and not mixed with
religion, as in China and some other countries, are seldom cal-
culated to answer the end they aim at, and therefore generally
indicate ignorance in the legislator who proposes them ; but
the apparent necessity of them almost always indicates a very
great degree of moral and political depravity in the State ;
and in the countries in which they are most strongly insisted
on, not only vicious manners will be found to prevail, but
political institutions extremely unfavourable to industry, and,
consequently, to population.
On this account Malthus entirely disagreed with Hume, who
supposed that the Eoman world was probably most populous
during the long peace under Trajan and the Antonines. Wars,
he says, do not depopulate much while industry continues in
vigour: and peace will not increase the number of people
when they cannot find means of subsistence. ** The renewal
of the laws relating to marriage under Trajan indicates the
continued prevalence of vicious habits, and of a languishing
industry, and seems to be inconsistent with the supposition of
a great increase of population."
Hume also thought that the population of the ancient world
was greater than in modern times, because, he said, there were
hosts of domestic servants in modern States remaining unmar-
ried. But the contrary inference, says Malthus, seems to b«
OF THOMAS R. MALTIIUS. 23
the more probable. When the difficulties attending the rear-
ing of a family are very great, and, consequently, many persons
of both sexes remain single, we may naturally suppose that the
population is stationary, but by no means that it is not abso-
lutely great ; because the difficulty of rearing a family may
arise from the very circumstance of a very great absolute po-
pulation, and the consequent fulness of all the channels to a
livelihood ; though the same difficulty may undoubtedly exist
in a thinly peopled country, vi^hich is yet stationary in its
population.
The number of unmarried persons in proportion to the whole
number, says Malthus, may form some criterion by which we
may judge whether population is increasing, stationary, or
decreasing ; but will not enable us to determine anything
resjoecting absolute populousness. Yet even in this point we
may be deceived, since, in some southern countries early mar-
riages are general, and very few women remain in a state of
celibacy, j^et the people not only do not increase, but the actual
number is perhaps small. In this case the removal of the
preventive check is made up by the excessive force of the
positive check. The sum of all the positive and preventive
checks taken together, forms, undoubtedly, the immediate
cause which represses population ; but we never can expect to
obtain and estimate accurately this sum in any country : and
we can certainly draw no safe conclusion from the contem-
plation of two or three of these checks taken by themselves,
because it so frequently happens that the excess of one check
is balanced by the defect of some other.
Causes which affect the number of births or deaths may or
may not affect the average population, according to circum-
stances ; but causes whicJi affect the production and distribution
of the means of subsistence must neceasarily affect population ;
and it is therefore on these causes, besides actual enumerations,
on which we can with any certainty rely. " All the checks to
population, which have been hitherto considered in the course
of this review of human society, are clearly resolvable into
moral restraint, vice, and misery."
With regard, then, to the checks to population in ancient
Home, Mr. Malthus thinks that moral restraint acted but
feebly in restraining the increase of numbers. And of the
other branch of the preventive check, which comes under the
denomination of " vice," according to Mr. Malthus, though its
effect seems to have been very considerable in the later periods
of Roman history and in some other count^''°!s; yet, on the
24 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
whole, he thinks its operation was much inferior to the positive
checks. A large portion of the procreative power was called
into action among the Romans, the redundancy being checked
by violent causes, among which war was the most prominent
and striking, and after which came famines and violent diseases.
In most of these ancient nations the population seems
to have been seldom measured accurately according to the
average and permanent means of subsistence, bat generally to
have vibrated between the two extremes, and therefore the
contrasts between want and plenty were strongly marked, as
might be expected in the earlier and less experienced ages of
human society.
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 25-
CHAPTER IV.
CHECKS TO POPULATION IN MODERN EUROPE.
BOOK ij. of Malthus' Essay treats of the checks to popula-
tion in the different States of modern Europe, — Norway,
Sweden, Kussia, German}'-, Switzerland, France, Great Britain,,
and Ireland. In Malthus' day, Norway seems to have been,
perhaps, the most prosperous country in Europe ; and it was
distinguished by the great healthiness of its people. The
death-rate he puts down as only one in 48, in a population of
about three-quarters of a million.
With such a very low positive check, Malthus at once looked
tor the existence of a very high prevenlive check ; and found
this to be present in the very small proportion of marriages
(one in 130) taking place annually in Norway.
There were, then as now, no large manufacturing towns in
Norway to take away the overflowing population of the coun-
try ; and, hence, as emigration was not then in vogue, the
Norwegian peasant seldom left the village he was born in.
Until, then, some married person died, there was usually no
place for another marriage to take place. "In countries
more fully peopled (says Malthus) this subject is always in-
volved in great obscurity. Each man naturally thinks that
he has as good a chance of finding employment as his neigh-
bour, and that if he fail in one place he shall succeed in
another. He marries, therefore, and trusts to fortune : and
the effect too frequently is, that the redundant population oc-
casioned in this manner is repressed by the positive checks of
poverty and disease."
It is without doubt, says our author, owing to the preventive
check to population, as much as to any peculiar healthiness of
air, that the mortality of Norway is so low. In every country
the principal mortality takes place among very young children ;
and the smaller number of these in Norway, in proportion to
the whole population, will naturally occasion a smaller mor-
tality than in other countries, supposing the climate to be
equally healthy.
The population of Norway is now about 1,800,000, a very
large accession since the days of Malthus, and there has o£
26 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
late years been a very large emigration from that country to
the United States, which indicates that, in all probability, there
will soon be less of prudential restraint in the matter of births,
and hence, doubtless, a higher death-rate than at the commence-
ment of this century. The former low death-rate of Norway,
one in 48, is not attained to at present by almost any Eu-
ropean State except Norway. It is little more than 20 per
1000 per annum.
Malthus mentions in his work that Norway is almost the
only country in Europe where a traveller will hear any appre-
hensions exiDressed of a redundant population, and where the
danger to the happiness of the lower classes of people from
this cause, is in some degree seen and understood. " This ob-
viously arises from the smallness of the population altogether
and the consequent narrowness of the subject. If our attention
were confined to one parish, and there were no power of emi-
grating from it, the most careless observer could not fail to
remark that, if all married at twenty, it would be perfectly
impossible for the farmers, however carefully they might im-
prove their land, to find employment and food for those that
would grow up ; but when a great number of these parishes
are added together in a populous kingdom, the largeness of the
subject and the power of moving from place to place obscure
and confuse our view. We lose sight of a truth which before
appeared completely obvious ; and in a most unaccountable
manner attribute to the aggregate quantity of land a power of
supporting people beyond comparison greater than the sum
•of all its parts."
In Sweden, in Mr. Malthus' day, the inhabitants of the
towns were only one-thirtieth part of the whole population ;
and the mortality, when Malthus wrote, seems to have been as
high as one in 35. The proportion of yearly marriages he
found, in Sweden, to be about one in 112 : varying from one
in 100, in good years, to one in 124, in bad ones. When it is
remembered that the marriage-rate in Norway was but one in
135, against one in 112 in Sweden, the reason of the high
death-rate is at once explained.
As usual, in Europe at that time, however, Swedish legis-
lators were in the habit of endeavouring to increase population
in all sorts of foolish ways, as, for instance, by encouraging
strangers to settle in the country. Malthus remarks that, by
doing so, the Grovemment of Sweden was merely raising the
already high death-rate, and not really increasing the population
at all.
OP THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 27
According to the economist, Cantzlaer, the principal measures
in which the Government had been employed for the encou-
ragement of the population were the establishment ot Colleges
•of Medicine, and of Lying-in and Foundling Hospitals. Mal-
thus remarks, that *' the example of the hospitals of France
may create a doubt whether such establishments are universally
to be recommended. Foundling hospitals, whether they attain
their professed object or not, are, in every view, hurtful to the
.State."
The population of Sweden, in 1751, was 2,229,000. It is
mow 4,400,000. There has recently been, as from Norway, a
very large emigration from that State to America. "TTie
sickly periods in Sweden (says Malthus) which have retarded
i;he increase of its population, appear in general to have arisen
from the unwholesome nourishment occasioned by severe want.
And this want has been caused by unfavourable seasons falling
npon a country which was without any reserved store, either
in its general exports, or in the liberal division of food to the
labourer in common years, and which was therefore peopled
up to its produce before the occurrence of the scanty harvest.
Such a state of things is a clear proof that if, as some of the
Swedish economists assert, their country ought to have a j3opu-
lation of nine or ten millions, they have nothing further to do
than to make it produce food sufficient for such a number, and
they may rest perfectly assured that they will not want mouths
to eat it, without the assistance of lying-in and foundling
hospitals."
With regard to the State of Eussia at the beginning of this
century, Malthus has left us a most interesting account derived
from queries made during his travels in that country. At that
■ date, the births in some parts of Russia were, to the deaths,
according to Russian statistics, nearly as three to one. This
jreminds us moderns of 1879, of the birth and death-rate of
our happy colony of New Zealand, where in 1877, there was
the prodigious birth-rate of 41 per 1000, with the very low
death-rate of only 12-4. Russian mortality, in Malthus' time,
must have been very low indeed ; and Mr. Tooke, in his View
of the Russian E?}ipire, published about that time, made out that
the general mortality in Russia was one in 58 of the population
annually. This is incredible, we think, in such an uncivilised
State as Russia then was.
The birth-rate in Russia was, at that date, about 40 per
1,000, or similar to that of New Zealand. The marriage-rate
^one in 90) was vastly higher than that of Norway (one in
28 THE LIFE AND vVRITINGS
130), SO that the population of Eiissia was evidently increasing-
most rapidly at that time. If we are to give any credit to the
healthiness of Russia in Malthus' time, it is clear that the citj
of Saint Petersburg was an exception to it, for the half of all
persons born there lived only till the age of 25.
With regard to foundling hospitals, Mr. Malthus' visit to-
the renowned Russian State hospitals of this description, has
often been quoted, and deserves to be attentively studied by
all who speak of the question of illegitimacy and charity.
Malthus found the mortality in the Maison des Efi/ans troiives
prodigious. One hundred deaths a month was a common
average. The average number of children taken into this
charity was at that time ten daily, and the death-rate terrible
and heart-rending. Children were taken in and no questions
asked from the mothers, but were handed over to nurses, and
given back to their parents at any time when they could prova
themselves able to support them.
The country nurses to whom these unfortunate children were-
given were paid only some fifteen-pence a week, and the
chilcfren were received into that hospital without any limit.
The children returned from the country (when they did return,
for most of them diedj, at the age of six or seven ; and the
girls left the charity at 18, the boys at 20. The excessive
mortality of the London Foundling Hospital of former days,
caused it to be forced almost entirely to close its doors ; and
to become, what it now is, one of the many useless charities
and shams of the metropolis of Mr. Malthus' native land.
Mr. Malthus also speaks of the great mortality of the Mos-
cow Foundling Hospital, which was instituted in 1786, as
follows : " It appears to me that the greatest part of this mor-
tality is clearly to be attributed to these institutions, miscalled
'philanthropical.' If any reliance can be placed on the ac-
counts given of the infant mortality in the Russian towns and
provinces, it would appear to be unusually small. The great-
ness of it, therefore, in the foundling hospitals, may justly be
laid to the account of the institutions which encourage a mother
to desert her child, at the very time when, of all others, it
stands most in need of her fostering care. The frail tenure
by which an infant holds its life will not allow of a remitted.
attention, even for a few hours."
Foundling Hospitals, it is clear, in Paris, Vienna, and in all
countries, tend to cause women to become thoughtless and
heartless. Malthus, indeed, makes a remark which we have
recently heard paralleled in Vienna. " An English merchant
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 29
■at Saint Petersburg told me that a Kussian girl, living in his
family, under a mistress who was considered as very strict,
had sent six children to the Foundling;- hosjDital, without the
loss of her place. And with regard to the moral feelings of a
nation, it is very difficult to conceive that they must not be
very sensibly impaired by encouraging mothers to desert their
•offspring, and endeavouring to teach them that their love for
their new-born infants is a prejudice, which it is the interest
of their country to eradicate."
Malthus mentions that the population of Russia, in 1796,
was 36,000,000. At present it is computed at eighty-five and
a half millions, only seven millions of which is found in Asia,
and the rest in Europe.
A Government that had a true sense of what was advan-
tageous for its subjects would, instead of offering encourageinents
to population, and incentives to thoughtlessness on the part of
parents, such as foundling hospitals and other charities, en-
tourage, by all means in its power, the feeling of parental
responsibility among all classes. To do this, the most direct
way would be, to show by some slight fine on the production
•of large families, that there is no jDussibility of attaining com-
fort and a low death-rate without conjugal prudence.
In Chapter ix. of Book ii., Malthus treats on the Checks
io Population in the Middle parts of Europe at the beginning
of this century. He makes the observation that there are few
•countries where the poorer classes have so much foresight as to
defer marriage till they have a fair prospect of being able to
dsupport projjerly all their children: and in all countries, he
adds, a great mortality, whether arising from the too great
frequency of marriage, or occasioned by the number of towns
and the natural unhealthiness of the situation, will necessarily
produce a great frequency of marriage.
In Holland, in the registers of twenty-two villages, Suss-
milch noted one marriage to every 64 persons living, the
usual rate being about 1 in 120. Malthus says he was for
some time puzzled at this high annual marriage rate, until he
found that the mortality in these villages was actually 45 per
1,000 of the population. Tiie extraordinary'- number of
marriages was merely produced by the rapid dissolution of the
old marriages by death, and the consequent vacancy of some
omployment by which a family might be sujjported. In
Norway the mortalit}^ in his day was only 22 per 1,000, and
the annual marriage rate 1 in 130. This is a notable contrast
with the figures relating to Holland just quoted.
so THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
Of late years the birth and death-rate in Holland have beett-
much more satisfactory than they were in the days of Malthus r
but the extreme poverty of the working classes in South, as
compared with North-Holland, has been recently shown by
Mr. S. Van Houten to result in a far higher birth-i-ate and
death-rate in the districts adjoining Rotterdam, than occurs
among the more prudent and well-fed inhabitants of Gron-
ingen. Still, there have been j^ears quite recently in Holland,,
when the death-rate has been as high as 29 per 1,000 (ISTl)^'
and e\^n as lately as 1875 it was 25 per 1,000.
The standard of comfort has greatly changed in several
cities in Germany. Thus, in Leipsig, Malthus mentions that,
in 1620, the annual marriage-rate was 1 in 82 : whilst it fell
in 1756 to 1 in 120. He observes that, in countries which
have long been fully peopled, and in which no new sources of
subsistence are opening, the marriages being regulated princi-
i^ally by the deaths, will generally bear nearly the same
proportion to the whole population, at one period as another.
In Berlin, at the commencement of this centurj', the annual
marriage-rate was 1 in 110, whilst it was 1 in 137 at Paris.
Berlin, then as now, was probably a very unhealth}^ city.
The death-rate of infants there at present is said to amount
to one-half of all born in the first year of life in some years.
Direct encouragements to marriage are, says Malthus, either
perfectly futile, or produce a marriage when there is no place
for one, thus increasing the mortahty. Montesquieu, Suss-
milch, and other authors thought that princes and statesmen
would really merit the name of fathers of their people, if from
the proportion of 1 in 120 — 125, they could increase the mar-
riages to the proportion of 1 in 80 or 90. But, sa^^s Malthus,
as this would greatlj^ raise the death-rate and the poverty in
the State, such princes would more justh^ deserve the title of
destroj^ers of the peo23le. Had Mr. Malthus lived in our day,
he would have been aware that a high marriage-rate is not by
any means necessarily followed by a high bivth-rate, since, in
modern France, where there are the greatest number of
married women in proportion to pojDulation, over the age of
15, of any European state, the birth- rate is lower than in any
other European state. But, in Malthus' day, human beings
were still dominated greatly by instinct, and had not begun to
allow reason to prevail in the most important of all human
acts, that which leads to the addition of new members tO'
Bociety.
Mr. Malthus mentions that it had been calculated in his time^
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 31'
tUat, when the proportion of the people in towns in any State
was to those in the country as 1 to 3, then the mortality was
about 28 per 1,000, rising to 32 in 1,000, when the proportion
of townsmen to countrymen was as 3 to 7 ; and falling below
28 per 1,000 when the townsmen are to the countrymen as
1 to 4. This holds true in principle in modern times : and it
is out of the question to expect to have the death-rate of large-
cities as low as it is in country districts inhabited by well-fed
peasants.
In chapter vi. our author speaks of the checks to jDopulation
in Switzerland. From statistics existing in Geneva, it seems
that in that town, during the sixteenth century, the probability
of life, or the age to which half of those born live, was only
4.88, or rather less than 5 ; and the mean life was about 18^
years. In the seventeenth century the probability of life was
11^, and the mean life 23 J. In the eighteenth century the
probability of life had increased to 27, and the mean life to 32.
M, Muret, a Swiss clergyman of Vevey, in the eighteenth
century, mentions the case of a village called Leyzin, with a
population of 400 persons, where there were only eight births
a year. The probability of life in this model parish appeared to
be so extraordinarily high as to reach 61 years. And the
average number of the births having been for 30 years almost
accurately equal to the number of deaths, clearly proved that
the habits of the people had not led them to emigrate, and that
the resources of the parish for the support of the population
had remained nearly stationary. As the marriages in this
parish would, with few exceptions, be very late, it is evident
that a very large proportion of the subsisting marriages would
be among persons so far advanced in life that the women had
ceased to bear. The births were only about 1 in 49 of the
population or much fewer than in France of modern days (1 in
40). In England they are 1 in 28 of the population at
present.
M. Muret made some calculations at Vevey respecting the
fecundity of marriages. He found that 375 mothers had
produced 2,003 children : ?*.,•;., about ^Jx children each : and he
also found that there were 20 sterile women out of 478, or
about 1 in 23 wives. Taking this into account, the average
number of children to a family at Vevey was 5^. In modern
France it is about 3, in Prussia 4 • 68, and in England about
41. In those days, the proportion of annual marriages to
population was lower in the Canton de Vaud than even in Nor-
way, being only ] in 140. In the model village of Leyzia
32 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
only one -fifth of tlie total mortality was among persons under
fifteen. Such were the results of what Mr. I\[althus considered
as the only true " moral restraint," late marriages. All these
calculations of M. Muret imply the operation of the preventive
check to population in a very great degree in the Canton de
Vaud. In the town of Berne, the proportion of unmarried
persons, including widows and widowers, was considerably above
the half of the adults, and the proportion of the living below
sixteen to those above was nearly- as 1 to 3 in the beginning
of this century. The peasants in Berne were noted for com-
fort and wealth, doubtless owing to the low birth-rate in that
country. A law there prevented those who had no means from
marrying.
Mr. IMalthus gives an amusing account of a conversation he
had with a peasant who went with him from the Lac de Joux
to the sources of the river Orbe. This man said that the habit
if early marriage might be really said to be the vice of the
country : and he was so strongly impressed with the necessary
and unavoidable wretchedness that must result from it, that he
thought a law ought to be made restricting men from entering
into the married state before they were forty years of age,
and then allowing it only with old maids, who might bear
them two or three children instead of six or eight. That
peasant would have been, we doubt not, one of the most
zealous advocates of the /wo children system, so wonderfully
carred out in man}' of the most flourishing districts of France,
and probably would have abandoned all desire to keep pru-
dent couples like those in these French districts from marrying.
We hold with that simjjle peasant of the Jura, who had learnt
the truths he expounded by sad and cruel experience, he having
married himself when very young, and with his famil}',
suffered much from poverty, that governments are culpable
when they do not attempt to lessen high birth-rates. To for-
bid early marriage, indeed, is to encourage prostitution and
cause many other evils ; but to affix a stigma on those who
produce large families is, as far as we can see, a plan which
can onh^ jDroduce good and need produce no evil results. It
is an utter misunderstanding of the rights of the individual to
suppose that each man and woman ought to have the right to
cause miseiy to their unfortunate children, and at the same time
produce a pressure upon the powers of the soil and lessen the
productive powers of past and jDresent labour. That this will
ere long be seen to be the truth arising out of the discoveries
^f the great English professor we cannot for a moment doubt.
OF THOMAS R. 3IALTHUS. fid
CHAPTER V.
OF THE CHECKS TO POPULATION IX FRANCE.
IN the sixth chapter of Book II., Mr. Malthiis gives us som&
account of the checks to population which existed in
Prance at the end of last century, which might convince the
most sceptical of modern pessimists of the vast strides which
41 nation may take in a short period towards the attainment of
-comfort and well-being.
The population of France, before the beginning of the war,
«ays Malthus, was estimated by the Constituent Assembly at
SCiJ millions. Necker estimated the yearly births, in 1780, to
loe above a million, and it is curious, as we shall soon see. that
France, in 1874, had not a million of births with a population
of 36 millions. Malthus estimated that, out of that million,
600,000 would attain the a2;e of 18 ; and, considering that
nearly as many persons are to be found in a given society, un-
married as married, he amply accounts for the seeming paradox
that, whilst France was supposed to have lost 2 J millions by
actual war and its consequences, at the time of the Revolution,
the population was found to have increased, in 1800, as
compared with 1790.
*' At all times." says Malthus, "the number of small farmers
and proprietors in France was great : and though such a state
of things is by no means favourable to the clear surplus pro-
duce or disposable wealth of a nation, yet sometimes it is not
unfavourable to the absolute produce, and it has always a
tendency to encourage population." This last remark of Mr.
IM.ilthus has not been verified. In no country does the popu-
lation tend to increase so slowly as in modern France —the
land par excellence of peasant proprietors. In all probability,
the rapid increase of population at the time of the French
Revolution arose from the lower death- rate which always fol-
lows a sudden amelioration of the position of the humbler
-3lasses, such as that which took place where landed projDerty
■came into their possession.
The average proportion of births to population in all France,
before the Revolution was. according to Necker, 39 per 1000.
It has singularly altered since that time, and is now only 26
per 1,000, or the lowest birth-rate in Europe. The death-rate
34 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
then was 33 per 1,000, and has fallen of late to 21 per 1,000^
or nearly the lowest death-rate in Europe.
Sir Francis d'lvernois, in a work entitled Tableau des Pertes,
has the following remark : " Those have yet to learn the first
principles of political arithmetic, who imagine that it is in the
field of battle and the hospitals, that an account can be taken
of the lives which a revolution or a war has cost. The num-
ber of men it has killed is of much less importance than the
number of children which it has prevented, and will still pre-
vent, from coming into the world." To this Mr. Malthus
replies : "And yet if the circumstances on which the foregoing
reasonings are founded should turn out to be true, it will appear
that France has not lost a single birth by the revolution. She
has the most just reason to mourn the two millions and a half"
of individuals which she may have lost, but not their posterity :
because, if those individuals had remained in the country, a
proportionate number of children born of other parents, which
are now living in France, would not have come into existence.
K in the best governed country in Europe we were to mourn
the posterity which is prevented from coming into being, we-
should always wear the habit of grief."
•' It is evident," he continues, " that the constant tendency
of the births in every country to supply the vacancies made
by death, cannot, in a moral point of view, afford the slightest
shadow of excuse for the wanton sacrifice of men. The posi-
tive evil that is committed in this case, the 23ain, misery, and
wide-spreading desolation and sorrow, that are occasioned to
the existing inhabitants, can by no means be counterbalanced
by the consideration that the numerical breach in the popula-
tion will be rapidly repaired. We can have no other right,,
moral or political, except that of the most urgent necessity,
to exchange the life of beings in the full vigour of their-
enjoyments for an equal number of helpless infants."
The next passage shows how immensely ameliorated is the
condition of modern France, as compared with that before the
Eevolution. *' At all times," says our author, " the number
of males of a military age in France was small in proportion
to the population, oa account of the tendency to marriage (1 to
113 of the population, according to Necker), and the great
number of children. Necker takes particular notice of this cir-
cumstance. He observes that the effect of the very great
misery of the peasantry is to produce a dreadful mortality of
infttnts under three or four years of age ; and the consequence ^
is that the number of young children will always be in too-
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 85
^leat a proportion to the number of grown-up people. A
million of individuals, he justly observes, will, in this case,
.neither present the same military force, nor the same capac ity
of labour, as an equal number of individuals in a country
.where the people are less miserable. Switzerland, before the
Revolution, could have brought into the field, or have em-
ployed in labour 'a]j[3ropHate to grown-up persons, one-third
more in proportion to her population, than France at the same
period."
How strikingly all this has been altered by the prudent
habits with regard to families, induced by the peasant holdings
in France, is clearly seen by the following statistics : — Between
the ages of 20 and 60 the human frame is most capable of pro-
duction, and, according to Kolb, there are in 10,000 persons
in the several States in Europe the following numbers of per-
sons of the productive ages: In France, 5,373; in Holland,
4,964; in Sweden, 4,954; in Great Britain, 4,732; and in
the United States, 4,396. France has. of all nations in Europe,
the highest average of ages of the living. Thus it is there
31-06 years; in Holland, 27-76 ; in Sweden, 27-66 ; in Great
Britain, 26-56; and in the United States, 23-10. And in
France there are a greater number of persons who attain tc
old age than in any other country, for, out of 100 deaths there
are, in France, over the age of sixty, 36 ; in Switzerland, 34 ;
in England, 30 ; in Belgium, 28 ; in Wurtemburg, 21 ; in
Prussia, 19 ; and in Austria, 17.
But the most notable of all the facts of modern Europe is that
marriages are more prevalent in proportion to population in
France than elsewhere, and, curiously, there is the smallest
number of illegitimate births. Thus, the illegitimate births
in France were, from 1825-67, only 7*27 per cent, of all births,
whilst in Prussia they were 8-24 per cent, in 1867; in Sweden
they were 10 per cent.; in Austria, 11 ; and in Bavaria, in
1868, even 22 per cent, of all births. Paris is an exception
to this, for the illegitimate births there are about one-fourth of
all births.
France had, in 1867, a mortality of only 1 in 44*24 persons;
v^hilst in Prussia the death-rate was 1 in 33-88, in Austria
1 in 29-72, in Holland 1 in 36-25, and in Bavaria 1 in 3465
inhabitants. And here again is a striking contrast of modem
France with the country of the days of Necker. France has
now the lowest birth-rate of Europe. There is but one birth
annually there in 39 inhabitants, whilst in Prussia there
is one birth in 2547 ; in Holland 1 in 29 ; in Austria 1 in
36 THE LIFE AND WRITTNGS
26 : in England 1 in 28 inhabitants. According to an article
by M. Bertillon on Marriage, in 1877, the average family to a
marriage in France is at present only 3 : against 4-68 in Ger-
many, i3-96 in Russia, 4*35 in Spain, and 4-25 in England. This
is what has been recently styled in Europe the '•two (or rather
three) Children System of the French." When we hear of the
absurtlly high birth-rate of 4-68 of Germany, need we wonder
that the death-rate in many German towns sometimes amounts
to oiie-h<ilf of all born in the fir!>t year of life ?
France had, in 1872, a population of 36,102,921, and the
number of births with this population (966,001) did not come
up to what it was in the days of Necker, when the population
was only 261 millions. And whilst the population of the United
Kingdom, according to our Registrar-General, is increasing at
the rate of 1,173 a day, of which about 700 are left to swell
the home population, the surplus of births over deaths in
France is generally not much more than some 60,000 persons
annually added to her population, so that it would take some
300 years for that country to double at its present rate.
Asa consequence of our great birth-rate, 36 per 1,000, there
is naturally a great emigration, amounting, as the Registrar-
General tells us, to some 468 persons daily from these shores
on an average, an emigi'ation which, as it has been mainly
masculine, has left us a surplus of nearly one million of women
in these islands. In France there is no great need for emi-
gration ; and hence but little takes place ; whilst, so contented
are the peasant proprietors with their homes, that, in 1872, it
was found that of the 36 millions of France 30| millions were
born within the registration districts. This fact accounts for
the continuance of a Republic in France. Poverty is the cause
of the ruin of Republics.
We add a few passages from a recent author to show how
great a step has been taken by the inhabitants of many parts
of France towards the removal of that terrible indigence which
is found in most European countries, and even in less favoured
districts in France.
In an article on Auvergne, written in 1874 and contained
in his work entitled Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy^
which appeared last year, Mr. Clifife Leslie makes the following
remarks : " The minute subdivision of land during the last 25
years in the Limagne, whatever may be its tendencies for
good or evil in manners and other respects, assuredly cannot
be ascribed to over-population, once regarded in England as
th© inevitable consequence of the French law of succession.
OF THOMAS R. MALTIIUS. 37
.... The Keport of the Enqiiete Agricole on the department
states : * All the witnesses have declared that one of the prin-
cipal causes of the diminution of the population is the diminu-
tion of children in families. Each family usually wishes for
only one child ; and wlien there are two, it is the result of a
mistake [tine erreur), or that having had a daughter first, they
desire to have a son.' A poor woman near Koyat, to whom I
put some questions respecting wages and prices, asked whether
my wife and children were there, or at one of the other water-
ing places, and seemed greatly surprised that I had neitlier.
She thought an English tourist must be rich enough to have
several children; but when asked how many she had herself,
she answered, with a significant smile, * One lad ; that's quite
enough.' Our conversation at this point was as follows : —
' Voire dame et vos enfant s, sont I'ls a Roy at ?^ ' Non.^ ' Ou
done? A Mont Dore ?^ * Moi, je nai ni enfant s ni femmeS
* Quoi ! Pas encore /^ ! ' ^ Et vous, comhien d'eiifants avez-vous ? '
* Un gars : cest hien assez. Nous sommes tauvres, mais vous etes
rtche. Cela fait une petite difference.' The translation of which
is : ' Are your wife and children at Roy at ? ' * No.' ' Where
then ? At Mont Dore ? ' * 1 have neither wife nor children/
* What ! Not yet ? I ' * And you, how many children have
you ? ' * One buy : that is quite enough. We are poor, but
you are rich. Tiiat makjs a little difference.' ''
Mr. Leslie continues, p. 421 : '' If over-population gives rise
to tremendous problems in India, the decline in the number
of children in France seems almost equally serious. If two
children are born to each married couple, a population must
decline, because a considerable number will not reach ma-
turity. If only one child be born to each pair, a nation
must rapidly become extinct. The French law of succession
is producing exactl}^ the opposite effect to what was predicted
in this country. Had parents in France complete testamentary
power, there would not be the same reason for limiting the
number of children. M. Leon Iscot, accordingly, in his evi-
dence on this subject before the Enquete Agricole on the Puy-
de-Dome, said — 'Tae number of births in families has dimi-
nished one half. We must come to liberty of testation. In
countries like England, where testamentary liberty exists,
families have more childien. ' "
Mr. Leslie puzzles us terribly. He recommends, in an essay
on The Celibacy of the Nation, that the state of female celibacy
should be greatly encouraged in all couuti-ies that desire to
have happy marriages, but yet he is agiinst the tivo children
**© THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
system of the French. Decidedly, Mr. Leslie has not thought
out the question. He adds, on p. 42-i : '* Whatever may be
thought of the change which is taking place in France in
respect of the numbers of the population, there is one change
of which no other country has equal reason to be proud. Its
agricultural population before the Eevolution was in the last
extremity of poverty and misery — their normal condition was
half-starvation ; they could scarcely be said to be clothed ;
their appearance in many places was hardly human. No other
country in Europe, taken as a whole, can now show, upon the
whole, so comfortable, happy, prosperous, and respectable a
peasantry."
In an article on "Holidays in Eastern France, Seine et
Marne," in Frasers Magazine, September, 1878, we find this
13assage: — '* We are in the midst of one of the wealthiest
and best cultivated regions of France, and when we penetrate
below the surface we find that in manners and customs, as
well as dress and outward appearance, the peasant, and agri-
cultural population generally, differ no little from their remoter
fellow-countrymen, the Bretons. . . . There is no superstition,
hardly a trace of poverty, and little that is poetic. The people
are rich, laborious, and progressive. ... It is a significant
fact that in this well-educated district, where newspapers are
read by the poorest, and where well-being is the rule and
poverty a rare exception, the church is empty on Sunday and
the priest's authority is nil.
*' It is delightful to witness the widespread well-being of
this highly-favoured region. ' There is no poverty here,' say
my host and hostess, * and that is why life is so pleasant.
True enough ! Wherever you go you find well-dressed con-
tented-looking people — no rags, no squalor, no pinched
want. ... The habitual look of content written upon the
faces you meet is very striking. It seems as if in this land of
Goshen life were no burden, but matter of satisfaction only.
Class distinctions can hardly be said to exist. There are em-
ployers and employed, masters and servants, of course ; but
the line of demarcation is lightly drawn, and we find an easy
familiarity existing between them, wholly free from impolite-
ness, much less vulgarity. . . . One is struck, too, by the good
looks, intelligence, and trim appearance of the children, who,
it is clear, are well cared for, The houses have vines snd
sweet peas on the walls, flowers in the windows, and altogether
a look of comfort and ease found nowhere in Western France.
. . . Here order and cleanliness prevail, with a diffusion of
well-being hardly to be matched out of America. . . .
Otf THOMAS R. MALTHU8. 89
"Dirt is rare, I might almost say as unknown, as rags. . . .
Drunkenness is also comparatively, in some places we mighf-
«ay absolutely, absent. As we make further acquaintance with
these favoured regions, we might suppose that here, at least,
the dreams of the Utopians had come true, and that poverty,
^squalor and wretchedness were banished for ever."
In the month of August, 1878, I had the great advantage of
reading, in my capacity of Vice-President of the First Section
of the International Congress of Hygeine at Paris, an essay on
■*' The Too Rapid Increase of Population as a Cause of Disease
.and Death." In the debate which followed. Dr. Bertillon,
the distinguished Professor of the Faculty of Medicine of
Paris, who has done so much for social statistics, said that he
<50nsidered that in many parts of France there was too great a
■disinclination on the part of the people to increase the popula-
tion. In Brittany, the marriages were few but very prolific, and
the people were very poor. The influence of the priests was
paramount in that province, and the mortality, both adult and
infantile, great. There were very few children to a family in
Normandy, and the deatli rate was low in that province. The
French Government he said, appeared to be acting according
to the plan advised by the reader of the essay, since they taxed
persons with lar-e families as much as those with small ones.
He admitted that the size of a family should be regulated by
parental forethought ; but thought that at present French
population was too stationary.
Dr. Lagneau said, that in France it was the rich who had
the smallest families, whilst the very poor often had large
ones. The rich employes of Government, above all, were
noted for the small size of their families. In the case of the
peasant vine-growers of the Marne, many would only have
one child, or even none at all, since these peasants found it
difficult to get people to come from the town and aelp them
with their farms, and had to do all the work by themselves.
Hence, female labour was much in demand.
These facts will, doubtless, afford to many thoughtful per-
«ons a clear enough picture of the remarkable position of
modern France, the only country in Europe which, as yet,
«eems to have begun fairly to grapple with the giant question
of population
4C THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
CHAPTER VI.
ON THE CHECKS TO POPULATION IN ENGLAND,
SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND.
■R. MALTHUS, in the seventh chapter of his second book^
-LTJL speaks of the checks to population in England. He
points out that a man of liberal education, with an income
just sufficient to enable him to associate with educated people,
must feel absolutely certain that, if he should marry and have
a family, he will be obliged to mix in the society of uneducated
persons. Such considerations make him pause. Sons of trades-
men and farmers are exhorted not to marry until settled ia
some business or farm, and the labourer who earns two shil-
lings a day, and lives comfortably while single, will hesitate
to divide that pittance among five I The servants of rich
people have so many comforts that they naturally are averse to
sink down to be the proprietors of some poor ale-house.
Hence, in Malthus' day (1806), the annual marriages in Eng-
land and Wales were as 1 in 123 of the population, a smaller
proportion than obtained in any European country at that time^
ixcept Norway and Sweden. Dr. Short, writing in 1750, pro-
posed that single people should be heavily taxed for the support
of the married poor. Mr. Malthus replies to this proposal of
the learned judge, that it is not wise to ask people to enter the
married state, so long as such crowds of children die in infancy
and so much poverty exists among married persons. Those,
he adds, who live single or marry late do not diminish the
actual population by so doing. They merely prevent the pro-
portion of premature mortality which would otherwise be ex-
cessive. Sir F. M. Eden mentioned that in some English
villages the mortality seemed to be very low, viz. 1 in 47, or
21 per 1,000. London, in the beginning of this century, was,
it seems, by no means so healthy as it is at ])resent. Accord-
ing to a great authority. Dr. Price, the mortality was actually
60 per 1,000 (1 in 20|), whilst at present it is about 23 per
1,000. At the same epoch, the Manchester death-rate was
1 in 21, or 35 per 1,000 ; so that Manchester was in those
days much healthier than London. Manufactures, alas ! how-
ever useful, are almost always mo3t unwholesome, because
they crowd hosts of people together without comfort, eCIuoa-
tion, or forethought.
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 411.
Mr. Malthus truly observes that " there certainly seems to
be something in great towns, and even in moderate towns^.
peculiarly unfavourable to the very early stages of life.""
Towns, he adds, are especially dangerous to the life of children.
** In London, according to former calculations, one half of the-
born died under three years of age ; in Vienna and Stockholm
under two; in Northampton under ten. In country villages,
on the contrary, half the born live to thirty, forty, forty-six,,
and above." He adds that in parishes where the mortality is.
BO small as 1 in 60 or 1 in 75, half the born would be found to
have lived to 50 or 55. This is precisely the case among the
members of the professional classes in England and Wales at.
this time, according to Mr. Charles Ansell's oft-quoted tables.
Dr. Short, it seems, estimated the birth-rate of England at.
1 in 28, or 35 per 1,000. This is just about our present birth-
rate. **It has hitherto," says our author, " been usual with
political calculators to consider a great proportion of births as-
the surest sign of a vigorous and flourishing state. It is to be^
hoped, however, that this prejudice will not last long. In
countries circumstanced like America, or in other countries
after any great mortality, a large proportion of births may be-
a favourable symptom ; but in the average state of a well-
peopled territory, there cannot well be a worse sign than a.
large proportion of births, nor can there well be a better sign,
than a small proportion." This sentence ought to be written
in letters of gold on the public monuments of all civilised-
States.
Sir Francis d'lvernois, who is by no means always so wise,,
is cited by Malthus as writing as follows : — " If the various
States of Europe kept and published annually an exact ucjcount.
of their population, noting carefully in a second column the
exact age at which the children die, this second column would
show the relative merit of the governments and the compara-
tive happiness of their subjects. A single arithmetical state-
ment would then perhaps be more conclusive than all the^
arguments that could be adduced."
Mr. Malthus speaks of the great difficulty that existed in^
former centuries of obtaining reliable information as to the-
numbers of the people. According to Davenant, he says, in
1690, the number of houses (in England and Wales) was-
1,319,215. Allowing five persons to a house, this would give-
a population of six millions and a half in 1690 ; and it is quite^
incredible that from this time to 1710 the population should
have diminished nearly a million and a half. So that th^
-42 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
estimated population of England and Wales in the latter year
was Bald to have been only five millions.
In chapter eight of his second book, our author speaks of the
checks to population in Scotland and Ireland. At the beginning
of this century, as now, Scotland seems to have been one of the
healthiest countries in Europe. Malthus mentions that in the
parish of Crossmichael, in Kircudbright, the mortality was
given as one in 98, and the yearly marriages as one in 192 of
the population. Mr. Wilkie stated that from the accounts of
36 parishes, the expectation of an infant's life appeared to be
as high as 40*3. There can be little doubt that these figures
are all, more or less, erroneous.
Mr. Malthus, writing in 1806, says that '* in these parishes
in Scotland, where manufacturing has been introduced, which
offered employment to children as soon as they have reached
their sixth or seventh year, a habit of marrying early naturally
follows ; and, while the manufacture continues to flourish and
increase, the evil arising from it is not very perceptible ; al-
though humanity must confess with a sigh, that one of the
reasons why it is not so perceptible is that room is made for
fresh families by the unnatural mortality which takes place
among the children thus employed." Mr. Van Houten gave
a most eloquent variation of this theme at the meeting of the
International Congress of Medical Men, at Amsterdam, in
1879, when he said that children should never be employed
in industry : — " The child belongs to himself and to play.
How many lives of children," he continued, " do we not wear
out in our clothes, or smoke away in our cigars ! "
Another writer in Malthus' day is astonished at the rapid
i crease of population in parts of Scotland, in spite of a con-
-siderable emigration to America in 1770, and a large drain
during the war. In the parish of Duthie (Elgin) the annual
births were yV ^^ *^® whole population, the marriages one in
55 Each marriage in this place was stated to yield seven
•children, and yet the population had decreased; The women
-of Scotland appeared in those days to have been very prolific.
In the parish of Nigg (Kincardine) there were 57 families
^with 405 children — ;>., nearly 7J each. Compare this with
modern France, with an average of three children to a mar-
riage. In Scotland at present the number of children to a
marriage is about four.
The illustrious clergyman, Dr. Chalmers, whose centenary
-of birth was celebrated on March 7, 1880, was always greatly
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 43
^averse to the introduction of the English poor-law system
into Scotland. Mr. Malthus points out that before his day
"*' the poor of Scotland were in general supported by voluntary
■contributions, distributed under the inspection of the minister
of the parish ; and it appears, upon the whole, that they have
been conducted with considerable judgment. Having no claim
by right to relief, and the supplies, from the mode of their
•collection, being necessarily uncertain, and never abundant,
ihe poor have considered them merely as a last resource in
•cases of extreme distress, and not as a fund on which they
might rely." In the account of Caerlaverock, in answer to
the question, " How ought the poor to be supplied ?" it is
most judiciously remarked, '* that distress and poverty multiply
in proportion to the funds created to relieve them ; that the
measures of charity ought to remain invisible till the moment
•when it is necessary that they should be distributed ; that in
the country parishes of Scotland in general small occasional
voluntary collections are sufficient ; that the legislature has no
■occasion to interfere to augment the stream, which already is
•copious enough ; in fine, that the establishment of a poor rate
would not only be unnecessary, but hurtful, as it would tend to
■oppress the land-holder without bringing relief to the poor."
Chalmers preached these doctrines enthusiastically during
iiis long and eventful life, and his conduct in moralising that
part of the city of Glasgow where he was pastor will ever be
Teme inhered with gratitude by all lovers of human happiness.
The Poor-law Act of 1834, which was carried out in accord-
^ance with the views of Malthus and Chalmers, unfortunately
placed no effectual check on the quantity of outdoor relief, and
hence the number of outdoor paupers in England is often
•as high as one-eighth of all reHeved. This demoralises and
pauperises the English poor to an alarming extent. This Poor-
law was introduced, with its worst features exaggerated, into
;Scotland in 1845, when a brand-new Poor-law was brought in
"with great facilities for outdoor relief. Well might Chalmers
^warn his countrymen against such a Poor-law. It has already
pauperised the most interesting peasantry in the British
Islands to such a degree that, whilst in England one out of
'«very twenty persons is often a pauper, in Scotland already
^one in twenty-three are so, whereas in Ireland, with a far lower
.standard of comfort, but a much more stringent Poor-law, only
one in seventy-four persons are in receipt of any parish relief,
"The endemic and epidemic diseases in Scotland," says
Malthus, " fall chiefly, as is usual, on the poor. . . . To
44 THE ltk;: anh \V!:!tinos
the same causes, in a grreat measure, are attributed the rlieu-
matisms which are general and the consumptions whicli ar*^
frequent among the common people. Wherever, in any j lace;,
from particular circumstances, the condition of the p or has
been rendered worse, these disorders, particularly the latter^
have been observed to prevail with greater foice." In those-
observations Mr. Malthus lays the very foundation of the
science of health. Health in Europe, he shows, is incom-^
patible with high birth-rates, which cause over-crowding,
consumption, and death.
Scotland, says Malthus, writing in 1806, is certainly still
over-peopled, but not so much as it was a century ago, when
it contained fewer inhabitants. Scotland in 1801, had 1,608,420
inhabitants, and in 1871, 3,360,018, so that its time of doublinu'
has been nearly seventy years, or much slower than that of
England and Wales.
With regard to Ireland, there is only one short paragraph in
Malthus' tentli Chapter of Ijook Second upon that country.
We give it in its entii-ety : — ''The details of the population of
Ireland are but little known. I shall onl}^ observe, therefore,,
that the extended use of potatoes has allowed of a very rapid
increase of it during the last century (18th). But the cheap-
ness of this nourishing root, and the small piece of ground;
which, under this cultivation, will in average years produce
the food for a family, joined to the ignorance and barbarism oi
the people, which have prompted thetn to follow their inclina-
tions with no other prospect than an immediate bare subsistence,.
have encouraged marriage to such a degree that the popula-
tion is pushed much beyond the industry and piesent re^^ources-
of the country ; and the consequence naturally is that the lower
classes of people are in the most depressed and miserable state.
The checks to the population are, of course, chiefly of the
positive kind, and arise from the diseases occasioned by squalid
poverty, by damp and wretched cabins^ by bad and insufficient
clothing, bj'- the filth of their persons, and occasional Avaut."
Malthus here foresaw the famine of 1848, which, aided by
emigration, reduced the Irish population from 8,175,124 im
1841 to 6,552,385 in 1851. Doubtless, as shown by Mr. J.
S. Mill, Professor Laveleye, and other subsequent writers, the-
miserable condition of the Irish peasant is due mainly to the-
intolerable feudal laws of land tenure, which have been sO'
violently put an end to in our happiest of modern Europear
States, France.
OF TLI03US U. BIALTUUS. 46
CHAPTER VII.
DETACHED ESSAYS.
JN Volume IT. of the *' Essay on the Principle of Popula-
tion " (edition ISOG) there are to be found a number of
most interesting remarks on the population question. Book II.
contains chapters on the Fruitfuhiess of ]\larriage, on the
Effects of Epidemics, on Registers of Births, Deaths, and Mar-
riages, and on the General Deductions from the Preceding
View of Society.
" There is no absolutely necessary connection," saj^s Malthus,
•** between the average age of marriage and the average age of
-death. In a country the resources of which will allow of a
rapid increase of population, the expectation of life or the
average age of death may be extremely high, and yet the age
■of marriage may be very early : and the marriages, then, com-
pared with the contemporary d<*laths of the registers, would,
«ven after the correction for second and third marriages, be
very much too great to represent the true proportion of the
born living to marry."
At the commencement of th"s century, it appears from the
transactions of the Society of Philadelphia, in a paper by Mr.
Barton, entitled *' Observations on the Probability of Life in
the United States," that the proportion of marriages to births
was as 1 to 4 J. As, however, this proportion was taken princi-
pally from towns, it is probable, according to Malthus, that
the births given were too low, and that as many as five might
be taken as an average for town and country. According to
this author, the mortality at that date was about 1 in 45 ; and,
if the population doubled in twenty- five years, the births
would be 1 in 20 (50 per 1,000).
In England at the commencement of this century the pro-
portion of marriages to births appears to have been about 100
to 350. But in those days Mr. Malthus calculated that the
annual marriages to the births in England amounted to about
1 in 4. In the East-end of London at the present day the
writer has found that the average number of children to %
marriage among the women of the poorer classes is about 7,.
whilst the annual births in England and Wales to the mar-
46
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
riages are nearly as 4^ to 1. In France the annual marriage*
are to the births as 1 to 3.
A writer in Mr. Malthus's day, Crome, observes that when,
the marriages of a country yield less than four births, the-
population is in a very precarious state ; and he estimates the
prolificness of marriages by the proportion of yearly births to-
maniages. If this had been true, the population of many
countries of Europe would be at present in a precarious state,
since in many, as in France, the projjortion of marriages to
births is much under 4 to 1.
** The preventive check," says Malthus, **is perhaps best
measured by the smallness of the proportion of yearly births
to the whole population. The projDortion of yearly marriages
to the population is only a just criterion in countries simi-
larly circumstanced, but is incorrect where there is a differ-
ence in the prolificness of marriages or in the proportion of
the population under the age of puberty, and in the rate of
increase. If all the marriages of a country, be they few or
many, take place young, and be consequently prolific, it is
evident that to produce the same proportion of births a smaller
number of marriages will be necessary, or, with the same pro-
portion of marriages, a greater proportion will be produced."
Curiously enough, in his day Malthus mentions that in
France both the births and deaths were greater than they were
in Sweden, although the proportion of marriages was then
rather less in France. " And when," he adds, " in two
countries compared, one of them has a much greater part of
its population under the age of puberty than the other, it i&
evident that any general proportion of the yearly marriages to
the whole population will not imply the same operation of the
:preventive check among those of a marriageable age."
One of the most interesting chapters in the second volume-
of Malthus' essay is that which relates to the rapid increase
of births after the j^lagues. According to Sussmilch, very few
countries had hitherto been exempt from plagues, which every
now and then would sweep away one-fourth or one-third cf
their population. That writer calculated that above one-third
of the people in Prussia were destroyed by the plague of 1711 ;
And yet, notwithstanding this great diminution of the popula-
tion, it appeared that the number of marriages in 1711 wa&
very nearly double the average of the six years preceding th&
plague. Hence the proportion of births to deaths was pro-
digious— 320 to 100 — an excess of births as great, perhaps, as
has ever been known in America. In the fuur years succeed-
OP THOMAS R. MALTHUS. ^T
ing the plague the births were to the deaths in the proportion-
of above 22 to 10, which, calculating the mortality at 1 in 36,.
would double the population in 21 years.
" In contemplating," says Malthus, '' the plagues and sickly
seasons which occur in the tables of Sussmilch, after a period
of rapid increase, it is impossible not to be struck with the
idea that the number of inhabitants had, in these instances,
exceeded the food and accommodation necessary to preserve
them in health. The mass of the people would, upon this
supposition, be obliged to live worse, and a greater number of
them would be crowded together in one house ; and these
natural causes would evidently contribute to increase sickness,
even though the country, absolutely considered, might not be
crowded and populous. In a country even thinly inhabited,.
if an increase of population takes place before more food is
raised, and more houses are built, the inhabitants must be
distressed for room and subsistence."
In Chapter xi. we have some general deductions from the
preceding views of Society. Mr. Malthus there shows that
the main cause of the slow growth of populations in Europe ia
insufficiency of supplies of food. No settlements, says our'
author, could have been worse managed than those of Spain,.
Mexico, Peru and Quito. Yet, under all their difficulties,,
these colonies made a quick increase in population. But the
English North American Colonies added to the quantity of rich
land they held in common with the Spanish and Portuguese
settlements, a greater degree of liberty and equality. In Penn-
sylvania there was no right of primogeniture in Malthus' time :
and in the provinces of New England the eldest son had only
a double share. The consequence of these favourable circum-
stances united was a rapidity of increase almost without a
parallel in history. Throughout all the northern provinces
the population was found to double itself in 25 years. The
original number of persons which had settled in the four pro-
vinces of New England, in 1643, was 21,200. Afterwards it
was calculated that more left them than went to them. In the
year 1760 they were increased to half a million. They had,
therefore, all along, doubled their numbers in 25 years. In.
New Jersey the period of doubling appeared to be 22 years ;
and in Khode island still less. In the back settlements, where
the inhabitants apj^lied themselves solely to agriculture, and
luy^ury was not known, they were supposed to double their
numbers in 15 years.
The population of the United States, says Malthus, writing
-48 THE \IFE AND WRITINGS
in 1806, according to the last Census, is 11,000,000. ** W©
liave no reason to believe that Great Britain is less populous
-at present, for the emigration of the small parent stock which
' produced these numbers. On the contrary, a certain amount
of emigration is known to be favourable to the population of
the mother country. Whatever was the original number of
British emigrants which increased so fast in North America,
let us ask. Why does not an equal number produce an equal
increase in the same time in Great Britain ? The obvious
reason is the want of food : and that this want is the most effi-
•cient cause of the three immediate checks to population which
have been observed to prevail in all societies, is evident, from
the rapidity with which even old States recover the desolations
of war, pestilence, famine, and the convulsions of nature. They
-are then for a short time placed a little in the condition of new
oolonies, and the effect is always answerable to what might be
-expected. If the industry of the inhabitants be not destroyed,
^subsistence will soon increase beyond the wants of the reduced
numbers; and the invariable consequence will be, that popu-
lation, which before perhaps was nearly stationary, will begin
immediately to increase, and will continue its progress till the
:foi.'mer population is recovered."
The decennial censuses of the United States during thii
oenturv have been as follows, in round numbers : — In 1800,
5,305,000 ; in 1810, 7,239,000 : in 1820. 9,638.000 ; in 1830,
12.866,000; in 1840, 17,069,000; in 1850, 23,193,000; in
1860, 31,413,000; in 1870, 38,558,000. If we compare the
oypherof 1830— 12,866,000— with that of 1800—5,305,000
— we see that the population of the States far more than
•doubled itself in the first thirty years of the century, making
all due allowance for immigration, by the simple process of
fecundity inherent in the human species.
Mr. Mai thus mentions (chapter XI. p. 67), that in New
.Jersey " the proportion of births to deaths, in an average
of seven years, ending 1743, was 300 to 100. In England
-and France, he says, at that time the highest average propor-
tion could not be reckoned at more than 120 to 100." At this
-date, 1880, the proportion of births to deaths in France is as
111 is to 100, and in England it is as 152 is to 100, whereas
in Dublin the deaths exceed the births. In New Zealand the
births are to the deaths as 340 is to 100. There is nothing,
lie says, the least mysterious in this. '* The passion between
•the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same,
that it may be considered, in algebraic language, as a given
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 49
quantity. The great law of necessity wbich prevents popu-
lation from increasing in any country beyond the food which
it can either produce or acquire, is a law so open to our view,
•so obvious and evident to our understandings, that we cannot
for a moment doubt it. The different modes which natine
takes to repress a redundant population, do not appear, indeed,
to us so certain and regular ; but though we cannot always
predict the mode, we may with certainty predict the fact. If
the proportion of the births to the deaths for a few yeaf-s
indicates an increase of numbers much beyond the propor-
tional increased or acquired food of the country, we may be
perfectly certain that unless an emigration take place the
deaths will shortly exceed the births, and that the increase
that has been observed for a tew years cannot be the real
average increase of the population of that country. If there
were no other depopulating causes, and if the preventive
oheck did not act very strongly', every country would with-
out doubt be subject to periodical plagues and famines."
This is a well-known passage, and shows the genius of the
writer as well as any in his work. How immensely superior
is his clear enunciation of the attraction between the sexes
when compared with the strange speculatious of Mr. Herbert
Spencer of late years, about the supposed gradual decay of that
•attraction in proportion to the alleged increase in the weight
of the human brain. It is quite deplorable to see what
ingenuity has been exercised by latter-day philosophers to
get over the plain and inevitable conclusions of Malthus and his
oommon-sense school! The struggle for existence and the sur-
vival of the fittest has been put forward as a plea for allowing
over-population to grind the masses in constant misery, and
the delusive ideal of the equation of mouths to food in the
course of ages by a mere fanciful tendency of organisms to
become more perfect, without the exercise of volition, are the
latest struggles of the ostrich to burrow with his head in the
€and in order to avoid the sight of the inevitable.
" The only criterion," says Malthus, " of a real and per-
manent increase in the population of any country is the increase
in the means of subsistence. But even this criterion is subject
to slight variations, which, however, are completely open to
observation. In some countries population seems to have
been forced : that is the people have been habituated by
degrees to live almost upon the smallest possible quantity of
food. There must have been periods in such countries wlien
population increased permanently without an increase in the
50 THE LIFE AND WUITIKGS
111 Bans of subsistence. China, India, and the countries pos-
se>serl by the Bedoween Arabs, as we have seen in the former
]);u-t of this woi-k, ap[)ear to answer to this description. The
average produce of these countries seems to be but barely
snthcient to support the lives of the inhabitants, and, of course,,
any deficiency from the badness of the seasons must be fatal.
Nations in this state must necessarily be suhject to famines."
Almr.st all the histories of epidemics which we have-
read tend to confirm the supposition that they are greatly
caused by that over-population which, as in Dublin in 1880,.
leads to over-crowded houses filled by ill-fed and ill-clad
inmates. Dr. Short, an author of the last century, shows in
his work (Air, Seasons, &c., vol. ii. p. 206), that a very con-
siderable proportion of the epidemic years either have followed
or were accompanied by seasons of dearth and bad food. In
other places he also mentions great plagues as diminishing
particularly the numbers of the poorest classes; and in speak-
ing of different diseases, he observes, that those which are
occasioned by bad and unwholesome food generally last the-
longest.
" We know (says our author) from constant experience that
fevers are generated in our jails, our manufactories, our
crowded workhouses, and in the narrow and close streets of
our large towns, all which situations appear to be similar in
their effects to scpialid poAerty, and we cannot doubt that
causes of this kind, aggravated in degree, contributed to the
production aud prevalence of those great and wasting plngues
formerly so common in Europe, but which now, from tlie
mitigation of their causes, are everywhere considei-ably
abated, and in many places appear to be completely ex-
tirpated.
'' Of the other gj-eat scourge of mankind — famine — it may
be observed that it is not in the nature of things that the
increase of population should absoluteh^ produce one. This
increase, though rapid, is necessarily gradual, and as the
luiman frame cannot be supported, even for a very sliort time,
without food, it is evident that no more human beings can
grow up than there is provision to maintain. But though the
principle of population cannot absolutely produce a famine, it
prepares the way f^-r one in the most complete manner, and
by obliging all the lower classes of people to subsist merely
on the smallest quantity'- of food that will support life, tuins
even a slight deficiency from the failure of the seasons into a
severe dearth; and may be fairly said, therefoi'e, to be one of"
OF THOMAS R. 3IALTnUS. 51
the principal causes of famine. Among the signs of an
approaching dearth. Dr. Short mentions one or more years of
luxuriant crops together, and this observation is probably just,
as we know that the general effect of years of cheapness and
abundance is to dispose a greater number of persons to marry,
and under such circumstances the return to a year which gives
only an average crop might produce a scarcity."
Much has been lately spoken in professional assemblies
about recent epidemics of small pox. It is curious to hear
what our author, writing in 1806, or seven years after the
discovery of Edward Jenner, has to say. " The small pox
(says Malthus, book 2, ch. xi., p. 61), which at present may
be considered as the most prevalent and fatal epidemic in
Europe, is of all others, perhaps, the most difficult to account
for, though the periods of its return are in many places
regular. Dr. Short (Air, Seasons, vol. ii., p. 441), observes
that from the history of this disorder it seems to have very
little dependence an present constitutions of the weather of
seasons, and that it ai)pears epidemically at all times and in
all states of the air, though not so frequently in hard frost.
We know of no instances, I believe, of its being clearly
generated under any circumstances of situation. I do not
mean, therefore, to insinuate that poverty and crowded houses
ever absolutelj^ produced it ; but I may be allowed to remark
that in those places where its returns are regular, and its
ravages among children, particularly among those of the lowest
class, are considerable, it necessarily follows that these cir-
cumstances, in a gieater degree than usual, must always
precede and accompany its appearance ; that is, from the time
of its last visit, the average number of children will be iii-
creasing, the people will, in con.^equence, be growing poorer,
and the houses will be more crowded till another visit removes
this superabundant population."
Other circumstances being equal, it may be affirmed that
countries are populous according to the quantity of human
food which they produce or can acquire ; and hapi^y, accord-
ing to the liberality with which the food is divided, or the
quantity which a day's labor will purchase. Compare, on
this standard of our author, the condition of an agricultural
laborer in England, with beefsteak at one shilling the pound
in London, with that of Dunedin, where, as we write, it is at
fourpence the pound, and wages are at least two and a half
those in England for that class. " Corn countries are more
populous than pasture countries, and rice countries more
52 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
populous than corn countries. But their happiness does not
depend either upon their being thinly or full}' inhabited, upon
their poveity or their riches, their youth or their age ; but on
the proportion which the population and the food bear to each
other. This proportion is generally the most favorable in new
colonies, where the knowledge and industry of an old state
operate on the fertile unappropriated land of a new one. In
other cases the youth or the age of a state is not, in this
respect, of great importance. It is probable that the food of
Great Britain is divided in more liberal shares to its inha-
bitants at the present period than it was two thousand, thr^*»
thousand, or four thousand years ago."
This passage from Malthus shows that he at least does not
believe in the view sometimes attributed to him that the
position of civilised societ}^ is tending continually to become
more and more unbearable from pressure of population on
food. Malthus saw quite clearly that the prevention of a
rapid birth-rate was more and more practised by nations in
proportion as they became better educated, and he therefore
did not at all take the pessimistic aspect of human society that
many believe.
"In a country never to be oveirun by a people more
advanced in arts, but left to its own natural progress in civili-
sation ; from the time when its produce might be considered
as a unit, to the time that it might be considered as a million,
during the lapse of many thousand years, there would not be
a single period when the mass of the people could be said to
be free from distress, either directly or indirectly, from want
of food. In every state in Europe, since we have first had
accounts of it, millions and millions of human existences have
been suppressed from this simple cause, though perhaps in
some of these states an absolute famine may never have been
known."
These expressions of Mr. Malthus are entirely opposed to
the idea that he held that the future of society was likely to be
less bright than that of the past Still there is a certain sad-
ness in the following sentence, w^hich is the real secret of the
unpopularity of the great discoverer's doctrine. In page 73,
book ii., chap, xi., he says : *' Population invariably increases
when the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by
powerful and obvious checks. . . Famine seems to be the
last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of
population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce
subsistence for man, tliat unless arrested by the preventive
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 53
check, premature death must in some shape or other visit the
human race. The vices of mankind are active and able
ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the
great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work
themselves. But should they fail in this work of extermina-
tion, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance
in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of
thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic, in^
evitable famine stalks in the rear, and at one mighty blow
levels the population with the food uf the world."
In Mr. Malthus's edition of 180G, the third book contains
several essays on the different systems or expedients which
have been proposed or have prevailed in society, as they affect
the evils arising from the principle of population. In chapter I.,
p. 77, be treats of systems of equality proposed by Wallace,
and the illustrious Condorcet. Mr. Wallace, whose name has
been adverted to by many writers as one of those who partly
saw the importance of the tendency of mankind to increase
more rapidly than food, did not seem to be aware that any
difficulty would arise from this cause till the whole earth had
been cultivated as a garden, and was incapable of any further
increase of produce. Mr. Malthus remarks upon this idea of
Mr. Wallace, that " at every period during the period of cul-
tivation, from the present moment to the time when the whole
earth was become like a garden, the distress for want of food
would be constantly pressing on all mankind if they were
equal. Though the produce of the earth would be increasing
every year, population would be tending to increase much
faster, and the redundancy must necessarily be checked by
the periodical action of moral restraint, vice, or misery."
M. Condorcet's Esqiiisse (Tun tableau hisiorique des progres de
V esprit hiimain was written, it is said, under the pressure of
that cruel proscription which terminated in his death during
the French Kevolutiou, and the posthumous publication is only
a sketch of a much larger work which he proposed to write.
By the application of calculations to the ^probabilities of life
and the interest of money, Condorcet proposed that a fund
should be established, which should assure to the old an assist-
ance produced in part by their own former savings, and in
part by the savings of individuals, who in making the same
sacrifice die before they reap the benefit of it. These establish-
ments, he observes, might be made in the name and under
the protection of the state. Mr. Blackley brought forward a
somewhat similar proposal in 1880. Condorcet adds that by
54: THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
the just application of such calculations, means might be found
of more completely preserving a slate of equality, by prevent-
ing credit from being the exclusive privilege of large fortunes,
and yet giving it a basis equall}' solid, and by rendering the
industry and activity of commerce let^s dependent on great
capitalists.
Mr. Malthus criticises the schemes of Condorcet as follows: —
" Supposing for a moment that they would give no check to
production, the greatest difficulty remains behind. Were
every man sure of a comfortable provision for a family, almost
every man would have one ; and were the rising generation
free from the killing frost of misery, population must increase
with unusual rapidity." And Condorcet himself saw this, for
he says : " But in this progress of industry and happiness,
each generation will be called to more extended enjoyments,
and, in consequence, by the physical constitution of the human
frame, to an increase in the number of individuals. Must not
there arise a period when these laws, equnlly necessary, shall
counteract each other ; when the increase of the number of
men surpassing their means of subsistence, the necessary result
must be, either a continual diminution of happiness and popu-
lation— a movement truly retrograde — or, at least, a kind of
oscillation between good and evil. Shall we ever arrive at
such a period? It is equally impossible to pronounce for or
against the future realization of an event, which cannot take
place but at an era when the human race will have attained
improvements of which we can at j^resent scarcely form a
conception."
To this ]Mr. Malthus replies that the only point in which he
differs from Condorcet in the paragraph just cited is with
regard to the period when it may be applied to the human
race. Condorcet thought that his age of iiun would not come
until a vevy distant era. Our author remarks, on the contrary,
that the period when the number of men surpassed their sub-
sistence had long ago arrived : and that this constantly sub-
sisting cause of periodical misery has existed ever since we
have any history of mankind, and continues to exist at the
present moment.
*' M. Condorcet (saj's Malthus) however goes on to say that
should the period which he conceives to be so distant ever
arrive, the human race, and the advocates of the perfectibility
of man, need not be alarmed at it. He then proceeds to
remove the diffi.culty in a manner which I profess not to under-
stand. Having observed that the ridiculous prejudice of
OF THOMAS R. MALTRUS. bO
'Superstition would by that time have ceased to throw over
morals a corrupt and degrading- .".usterity, he alludes either to
a promiscuous concubinage which would prevent breeding, or
to something else as unnatural. To remove the difficult^' in
this way will surely, in the opinion of most men, be to destroy
that virtue and purity of manners which the advocates of
■equality, and of the perfectibility of man, profess to be the
■end and object of their views."
It is from passages such as these that Mr. Malthus differs «o
much from the so-called New-Malthusians, who look for the
solution of the population difficult}'- to the " smnll-family
system " of the French. It would seem that the great French
writer, Condorcet, had a prophetic knowledge of what the
•effect of the great French Rovolution would be, a revolution
which, by converting the cultivator of the soil of that state into
the proprietor, has made France the most prudent country in
the known world in the question of the size of families. Mr.
Bonar, too, in a clever pamphlet, i:)ublished in 1880, shows
that Mr. Malthus retained somewhat the same phraseology as
he uses here, in his 7th edition, page 512, where he thus
«peaks: " If it were possible for each married couple to limit
by a wish the number of their children, there is certainly
reason to fear that the indolence of the human race would he
very greatly increased." Had he lived in 1881, and seen how
rapidly the industrj'^ of France is increasing, her wealth develop-
ing, and poverty diminishing in that happiest of modern
European states in the face of the lowest European birth-rate
(26 per 1,000), he would have been the first, we douiit not, to
retract these crude expressions, and to see wherein tnie virtue
♦consists.
M. Condorcet seems to have entertained some very hopeful
ideas as to the j^erfectibility of the human frame, and to have
thought that though man would not become absolutely
immortal, yet that the duration between his birth and his
natural death would increase without ceasing, would have no
natural term, and might properly be expressed by the term
indefinite. Malthus demurs to these speculations. He thinks
that the average duration of human life will, to a certain
extent, vary from healthy or unhealthy climates, from whole-
some or unwholesome food, from virtuous or vicious manners,
«!ul from other causes ; but it may be fairl}' doubted whether
there has been really the smallest perceptible advance in tlie
natural duration of human life since we had any authentic
liistory of man. " What can we reason but from what we know ?"
56 THE LIFE AND WHITINGS
" The capacity of improvement in plants and animals, to
a certain extent, no person can possibly doubt. A clear
and decided progress has already been made, and yet I
think that it would be highly absurd to say that this progress-
has no limits. . . The error does not seem to lie in supposing
a small degree of improvement possible, but in not discrimi-
nating between a small improvement, the limit of whicli is.
undefined, and an improvement really unlimited. As the
human race could not be improved in the same way as the
domestic animals, without condemning all the bad specimen*
to celibacy, it is not probable that an attention to breed should
ever become general." Here, again, we prefer the injunction,
of Professor Mantegazza to consumptive parents : ' Anjntc
ma non generate' ('Marry but do not reproduce'). Tlie-
speculations of Condurcet seem, to a certain extent, to have-
been revived in modern days by iMr. H. Spencer and Dr. B. W.
Kichardson. The former of these distinguished authors seems
to look forward to a time when tlie wants of mankind shall by
the process of evolution become equated to their powers of
acquiring food, without calling in the will ; and Dr. Richard-
son seems to look forward to a far greater longevity for indi-
viduals of the human species than has been experienced in
its past history.
" When paradoxes of this kind (says Malthus) are advanced
by ingenious and able men, neglect has no tendency to con-
vince them of their mistakes. Priding themselves on what
they conceive to be a mark of the make and size of their own
understandings, of the extent and comprehensiveness of their-
views, they will look upon this neglect merely as an indication
of poverty and narrowness of the mental exertions of their
contemporaries, and only think that the world is not yet pre-
pared to receive their sublime truths. On the contrary, a.
candid investigation of these subjects, accompanied with a.
perfect readiness to adopt anything warranted by sound
philosophy, may have a tendency to convince them that in.
forming unfounded and improbable hypotheses, so far fron>.
enlaro'ing the bounds of science, they are contracting it ; so fat
from promoting the improvement of the human mind, they
are obstructing it ; they are throwing us back again almost,
into the infancy of knowledge, and weakening the founda-
tions of that mode of philosophising under the auspices of
which science has of late made such rapid advance. The late-
rage for wide and unrestrained speculation seems to have been
a kind of mental intoxication, arising perhaps from the great
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 5^
and unexpected discoveries which had been made in varioup^
branches of science. To men elate and inspired with such
successes, everything appears to be within the grasp of human
powers, and under this illusion they confounded subjects where
no real piogress could be proved with those where the pro-
gross liad been marked, certain and acknowledged."
The groat antagonist of Mr. Malthus at the commencement
of this century was Mr. Godwin, who, in his work on Political
Justice^ gives a magnificent picture of a system of equality,
which, by his account, is to regenerate society. On page 458
ofbooklV. of that work Mr. Godwin thus speaks: — *' The
spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and the spirit of
fraud, then, are the immediate growth of the established
administration of property. They are alike hostile to
intellectual improvement. The other vices of envy, malice^
and revenge are their inseparable companions. In a state of
society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where all
shared alike the bounties of nature, these sentiments would
inevitably expire. The narrow principle of selfishness would
vanish. No man being obliged to guard his little store, or
provide with anxiety or pain for his restless wants, each
would lose his individual existence in the thought of the
general good. No man would be an enemy to his neighbours,,
for they would have no subject of contention ; and, of con-
sequence, philanthropy would resume the empire which reason
assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her perpetual
anxiety about corporeal support, and free to expatiate in the
field of thou(!;ht which is congenial to her. Each would assist
the inquiries of all."
The great error, as Malthus observes, under which Mi-
Godwin labors throughout his whole work is in attributing
almost all the vices and miseries that prevail in civil society ta
human institutions. Political regulations, and the established
administration of property, are, with him, the fruitful sources
of all evil, the hotbed of all the crimes that degiade man^
kind. " Man cannot live (says Malthus) in the midst of
plenty. All cannot shaie alike the bounties of nature. Were
there no established administration of property, every man.
would be obliged to guard with force his little store. Selfish-
ness would be triumphant. The subjects of contention would
be perpetual. Every individual would be under a constant
anxiety about corporeal support, and not a single intellect
would be left free to expatiate in the field of thought."
Mr. Godwin supposed that the population difficulty wouldl
JB8 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
only become of importance at some remote future. '' Three-
fourths of the habitable globe are now uncultivated. The
parts already cultivated are capable of immeasurable im-
provement. Myriads of centuries of still increasing .popula-
tion may pass away, and the earth be still found sufficient for
the subsistence of its inhabitants." Mr. Malthus asks us to
imagine for a moment Mr. Godwin's S3^stem of eqnalit}'-
realised in its utmost extent, and see how soon the difficulty
•of population might be expected to press upon us under so
perfect a form of society.
Let us suppose, he saj's, all the causes of vice and misery
in this island removed. " War and contention cease. Un-
wholesome trades and manufactories do not exist. Crowds no
longer collect together in great and pestilent cities for purposes
■of Court intrigue, of commerce, and vicious gratification.
Simple, healthy, and rational amusements take place of drink-
ing, gambling, and debauchery. There are no towns sufficiently
large to have any prejudicial effects on the human constitution.
"The greater part of the happy inhabitants of this terrestrial
Paradise live in hamlets and farm-houses, scattered over the
face of the country. All men are equal. The labors of luxury
are at an end, and the necessary labors of agriculture are shared
-amicably among all. The number of persons and the produce
■of the island we suppose to be the same as at present. '* The
sjDirit of benevolence guided b}' impartial justice will divide
this produce among all the members of society according to
■their wants. Though it would be impossible that they should
all have animal food every day, yet vegetable food, with meat
occasionally, would satisfy the desires of a frugal people, and
would be sufficient to preserve them in health, strength, and
^spirits."
" Mr. Godwin considers marriage as a fraud and a monopoly.
Let us suppose the commerce of the sexes established upon
"principles of the most perfect freedom. Mr. Godwin does not
think himself that this freedom would lead to a promiscuous
ntercourse, and in this I perfectly agree with him. The love
•of variety is a vicious, corrupt, and unnatural taste, and conld
not prevail in any great degree in a simple and virtuou«i state
■of society. Each man would probabl3' select for himself a
partner to whom he would adhere, as long as that adherence
•continued to be the choice of both parties. It would be of
little consequence, according to Mr. Godwin, how many
children a woman had, or to Avhom the}^ belonged. Provisions
■andassistance would spontaneously flow from the quarter in
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 69
which they abounded to the quarter in which they were
deficient, and every man according to his capacity would be
ready to furnish instruction to the rising generation."
'*! cannot conceive a form of society so favorable upon the
whole to population. The irremediableness of marriage, as it
is at present constituted, undoubtedly deters many from enter-
ing into this state. An unshackled intercourse, on the
-contrary, would be a most powerful incitement to early attach-
ments, and as we are supposing no anxiety about the future
support of children to exist, I do not conceive that there would
be one woman in a hundred, of twenty-three years of age,
without a family."
'' With these extraordinary encouragements to population,
and every cause of depopulation, as we have supposed, removed,
the numbers would necessarily increase faster than in any
•society that has ever yet been known. 1 have before men-
tioned that the inhabitants of the back settlements of America
appear to double their numbers in fifteen years. England is
•certainly a healthier country than the back settlements of
America ; and as we have supposed every house in the island
to be airy and wholesome, and the encouragements to have a
famil}^ greater even than in America, no probable reason can
be assigned why the population should not double itself in less,
if possible, than fifteen years." . . . '' It is probable that
'the half of every man's time (in a system of equality) must be
•employed for this purpose (in agriculture). Yet with such a
much greater exertion, a person who is acquainted with the
nature of the soil of the country, and who reflects on the
fertility of the lands already in cultivation, and the barrenness
■ of those that are not cultivated, will be very much disposed to
doubt whether the whole average produce could possibly be
•doubled in twenty years from the present period. The only
• chance of success would be from the ploughing up most of the
grazing countries, and putting an end almost entirely to
animal food. Yet this scheme would probably defeat itself.
The soil of England will not produce much without dressing ;
and cattle seem to be necessary to make that species of manure
which best suits the land.
" Alas, what becomes of the picture, where men lived in the
midst of plenty, when no man was obliged to provide with
•anxiety and pain for his restless wants ; when the narrow
principles of selfishness did not exist ; when the man was
delivered from his perpetual anxiety for corporal support, and
■free to expatiate in the field of thought which is so congenial
60 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
to him ? This beauiifnl fabric of the imaginatiou vanishes at
the severe touch of truth. . . . The children are sickly
from insufficient food. The rosy flush of health gives place to
the pallid cheek and hollow eye of misery."
In as short a period as liftj' years the whole of the worst
evils of society will certainly re-appear, if population be not
checked (says Malthus) by moral restraint, vice, or misery.
After showing that a regime of equality would inevitably end
in these shallows, so long as the birth-rate was not restricted,
Malthns contends that some such laws of jDrivate property, as.
those which at present exist, would be certain to re-appear and
misery to be increased. He then continues to give the best
account of the irrevocable contract of marriage, with which we-
are familiar, that any writer has ever attempted to give.
" The next subject which would come under discussion,
intimately connected with the preceding, is the commerce of
the sexes. It would be urged by tho^se who had turned their
attention to the true cause of the difficulties under which the-
community labored, that while every man felt secure that all
his children would be well provided for by general bene-
volence, the powers of the earth would be absolutely inadequate
to produce food for the population which would inevitably
ensue ; that even if the whole attention and labor of the
society were directed to this sole point, and if by the most
perfect security of property, and every other encouragement
that could be thought of, the greatest possible increase of pro-
duce were yearly obtained ; yet still the increase of food would
by no means keep pace with the much more rapid increase of
population ; that some check to population, therefore, was
imperiously called for; that the most natural and obvious
check seemed to be to make every man provide for his own
children ; that this would operate in some respect as a.
measure and a guide in the increase of population, as it might,
be expected that no man would bring beings into the world
for whom he could not find the means of support ; that when
this, notwithstanding, was the case, it seemed necessary, for
the example of others, that the disgrace and inconvenience
attending such conduct should fall upon that individual who
had thus inconsiderately plunged himself and his innocent
children into want and misery. The institution of marriage,
or at least of some express or implied obligation on every man
to support his own children, seems to be the natural result of
these reasonings, in a community under the difficulties that we-
have supposed.''
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 61
Mr. Malthus then proceeds with his theory of the reason
why society punishes carelessness in sexual relations much
more in the case of a woman than in that of a man. *' The
view of these difficulties presents ns with a very natural
reason why the disgrace which attends a breach of chastity
should be greater in a woman than in a man. It could not be
expected that a woman should have resources sufficient to
support her own children. When, therefore, a woman had
lived with a man who had entered into no compact to main-
tain her children ; and aware of the inconveniences that he
might bring upon himself, had deserted her, those children
must necessarily fall upon the society for support or starve.
And to prevent the frequent recurrence of such an incon-
venience, as it would be highly unjust to punish so natural
a fault b}'- personal restraint or infliction, society might agree
to punish it with disgrace. The defence is besides more
obvious and conspicuous in the woman, and less liable to aiiy
mistike. The father of a child may not always be known ;
hut the same uncertainty cannot easily exist with regard to
the mother. Where the evidence of the offence was most
complete, and the inconvenience to society at the same time
the greatest, there it was agreed that the largest share of blame
should fall. The obligation on every man to support his
children the society would enforce by positive law, and the
greater degree of inconvenience or labor to which a family
would necessarily subject him, added to some feature of dis-
grace, which every human being must incur who leads
another into unhappiness, might be considered as a sufficient
punishment for the man.
** That a woman should at present be almost driven from
society for an offence which men commit nearly with impunity,
seems to be undoubtedly a breach of natural justice. But the
origin of the custom, as the most obvious and effectual method
of preventing the frequent recurrence of a serious inconvenience
to a community, appears to be natural, though not perhaps
perfectly justifiable. This origin, however, is now lost in the
new train of ideas that the custom has since generated. What
at first sight might be dictated by state necessity is now sup-
ported by female delicacy, and operates with the greatest force
on that part of the society, where, if the original intention of
the custom were preserved, there is the least occasion for it."
These most ingenious speculations of our author contain un-
doubtedly a great deal of truth in them. At the same time,
it is clear that when society shall begin to replace traditional
62 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
views of morality by more positive and scientific deductions-
from experience, when it shall be generally acknowledged in
all civilised states of the old world that the basis of true-
morality must consist in that conduct which will keep the birth-
rate very low, Mr. Malthus's arguments in favour of irre-
vocable marriage and excessive severity towards those who
prefer not to enter the imperfect marriage arrangements of
modern European countries, with a full knowledge of what
they are doing, must be gradually replaced by some law which
shall affix a stigma, not so much upon illegitimacy, but rather
upon the production of large families. Those who are well
acquainted with the modern position of the marriage question in
Europe, and who have studied what has been written on it by
Wilheliii von Humboldt and J. S. Mill, will readily acknow-
ledge that, if society would but take care to stigmatise as-
immoral all those persons who take more than a very moderate
share of the blessings of parentage in old countries, it might, as
Humboldt proposes, entirely withdraw from all legal interfer-
ence in the contracts between the sexes. Moral obligations might
still remain in full force towards those who have been led to
base their future life on the implied continuance of such
contracts ; but doubtless the law of civilised states is at present
tending towards far greater faciiitj' of dissolving such con-
tracts than Mr. Malthus seems to have approved of.
In chapter III. of book III. our author disposes of the
so-called '' futurit}^ fallac}'," which unfortunately still con-
tinues to be opposed to the teachings of the economists, as if
it had not been over and over again refuted by the author of
the essa}"- on population. " Other persons," says our author,
*' besides Mr. Godwin have imagined that I looked to certain
j^eriods in future when population would exceed the means of
subsistence in a much greater degree than at present, and that
the evils arising from the principle of population were rather
in contemplation than in existence ; but this is a total mis-
conception of my argument. Poverty, and not absolute
famine, is the specific effect of the principle of population, as
I have before endeavoured to show. jMany countries are now
suffering all the evils that can ever be expected to flow from
this principle, and even if we were arrived at the absolute
limit to all further increase of produce, a point which we shall
certainly never reach, I should by no means expect that those
evils would be in anv marked manner ao;o;ravated. The
increase of produce in most European countries is so very
slow, compared with what would be required to support an
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 03
unrestricted increase of people, that the checks which are
constantly in action to repress the population to the level of a
produce increasing so slowly would have very little more to
do in wearing it down to a produce absolutely stationary."
The great historian Hume had pointed out that in those
countries where infanticide was permitted by law, there was
greater over-population than in others where it was pro-
hibited, because parents weie too humane to betake themselves
to such a frightful •' positive check." The excessive poverty
of China, where the custom of infanticide prevails, is an
example of the truth of Mr. Hume's remarks. ''It is still,
however, true/' adds our author (p. 139), "that the ex-
pedient is, in its own nature, adequate to the end for which it
was cited, but to make it so in fact, it must be done by the
magistrate, and not left to the parents. The almost invariable
tendency of this custom to increase population, when it depends
entirely upon the parents, shows the extreme pain which they
muet feel in making such a sacrifice, even when the distress
arising from excessive poverty may be supposed to have
deadened in great measure their sensibility. What must the
pain be then upon the supposition of the interference of a.
magistrate, or of a positive law, to make parents destroy a
child, which they feel the desire and think they possess the
power of supj)orting ? The permission of infanticide is bad
enough and cannot but have a bad effect on the moral sen-
sibility of a nation : but I cannot conceive anything more
detestable or shocking to the feelings than any direct regula-
tion of this kind, although sanctioned by the names of Plato
and Aristotle."
It is a singular fact that Mr. Godwin {Reply, p. 70), made
a supposition respecting the number of children that might be
allowed to each prolific marriage. That writer, however, did
not enter into any detail as to the mode by which a greater
number might be prevented. The last check which Mr.
Godwin mentions, Mr. Malthtis feels persuaded is the only,
one which that author would seriously recommend. It is
" That sentiment, whether virtue, prudence, or pride, which
continually restrains the universality and frequent rejjetition of
the marriage contract." He says he entirely approves of this
check, and adds that the tendency to early marriage is so
strong that we want every possible help that we can get to
counteract it ; and therefore he thinks that a system of equality
like that proposed by Mr. Godwin, which tends to weaken the
foundations of private property, and to lessen in any degree
64 THE LIFE AND WKITIKGS
the full advantage and superiority which each individual may
•derive from his prudence, must remove the only counteracting
weight to the passion of love that can be depended upon for
■any essential effect.
Mr. Godwin acknowledges that in his system " the ill con-
sequences of a numerous family will not come so coarsely
home to each man's individual interest as they do at present."
Mr. Malthus is sorry to say that from what we know hitherto
of the human character, we can have no rational hopes of
success without this coarse application to individual interest.
In our author's day it was out of the question for him to be
aware that Mr. Godwin's hint as to the limitation of the
family would come to be the prominent social doctrine it has
iince become. In France, amoug tie "espectable classes the
production of a large family is now looked upon as quite a
mark of a low state of morality and culture ; and so effectual
has this public opinion become in that most remarkable state
that the families of the professional classes are not even two
on an average (1.74). That Mr. Malthus should have con-
sidered late marriage as the only remedy for poverty i«
easily understood. Experience alone can enable mankind to
judge of how happiness is to be best attained ; and it was
doubtless because our incompaiable writer on social questions,
Mr. J. S. Mill, had so long resided in France that he could
take the decided stand he did against the large families which
cause such terrible misery in England and Germany. The
result of this great prudence among the better classes of
France is well shown by the very small excess of births over
deaths. Thus, in 1879, the increase of population from this
cause was but 92,000, whereas M. Yves Guyot speaks of a
total of births in 1879 in unfortunate Ireland of 887,055,
with a total of deaths of 500,^48, which gives an excess of
births over deaths, in a population of about five millions, of
386,707. No wonder that Ireland is so fond of emigration
and still so steeped in poverty.
It has recently been contended by the author of the
** Elements of Social Science " that the only way of raising
wages and profits in old countries and making life a desirable
thing to all lies in the state making it an offence, to be
punished by a small fine, to bring into an overcrowded
country more than a very moderate average number of
children. Mr. J. S. Mill's teachings tended in the same
direction, and this view of the duty of the citizen towards his
neighbour is fast becoming a piece of morality accepted by
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS.
65
the most thinking and most dutiful portion of society. When
tnis duty of limiting our offspring, not only to the income
we possess, but also to the powers possessed by the com-
munity, of affording an increase of numbers, becomes a
political question, then, but not until then, will happiness fop
the masses be possible.
66 THS LISE A^D WiiiTlKtia
CHAPTER IX.
OW POOB LAWS.
IN Chapter V. of Mr. Malthus's book iii., vre have thes&
luminous remarks of his on Poor Laws, which have been
80 often quoted by statesmen and jDhilanthropists : —
" It is," says our author, " a subject often started in con-
versation, and mentioned always as a matter of great surprise,,
that, notwithstanding the immense sum which is annually
collected for the poor in this country, there is still so much
distress among them. But a man who looks a little below the
surface of things would be much more astonished if the fact
were otherwise than it is showed to be, or even if a collection
universally of eighteen shillings in the pound, instead of four,
were materially to alter it. Suppose that by a subscription of
the rich, the eighteen pence or two shillings which men earn
now were made up to four shillings, it might be imagined,
perhaps, that they would then be able to live comfortably,
and have a piece of meat every day for their dinner. But this
would be a very false conclusion. The transfer of three ad-
ditional shillings a day to each labourer would not increase
the quantity of meat in the country. There is not at present
enough for all to have a moderate share. What would then
be the consequence ? The competition among the buyers in
the market of meat would rapidly raise the price from Sd. or
9d. to two or three shillings in the pound, and the commodity
would not be divided among many more people than at-
present.
" When an article is scarce, and cannot be distributed to all,
he that can show the most valid patent, that is, he that offers
the most money, becomes the possessor . . . and when
subsistence is scarce in jDroportion to the number of the people,
it is of little consequence whether the lowest members of the
society possess two shillings or five. They must, at all events,
be reduced to live upon the hardest fare and in the smallest
quantity.
" A collection from the rich of eighteen shillings in the
pound, even if distributed in the most judicious manner,
would have an effect similar to that resulting from the suppo-
or THOMAS K. M.VLTUUS. 67
eition which I have just made: and no possible sacrifices of
the rich, particularly iu money, would for an}' time prevent
the recurrence of distress among the lower members of society,
whoever they were. Great changes might, indeed, be made.
The rich might become poor and some of the poor rich ; but
while the present proportion between population and food con-
tinues, a part of society must necessarily find it difficult to
support a family, and this difficulty will naturally fall on the
least fortunate members."
Malthus mentions that in a great scarcity which occurred in
England in 1801, no less than ten millions sterling were given
away in charity. In one case cited by our author, a man with
a family received fourteen shillings a week from his parish.
His common earnings were ten shillings a week, and his
weekly revenue therefore twenty-four. Before the scarcity
he had been in the liabit of purchasing a bushel of flour a
week, with eight shillings perhaps, and consequently had tw*
shillings out of his ten to spare for other necessaries. During
the scarcity he was enabled to purchase the same quantity at
nearly three times the price. He paid twenty-two shillings
■for his bushel of flour, and had as before two shillings remain-
ing for other wants.
' The price of labour, says Malthus, when left to find its natu-
ral level, is a most important political barometer, explaining
the relations between the supply of provisions and the demand
for them : between the quantity to be consumed and the num-
ber of consumers : and, taken on the average, it further ex-
presses clearly the wants of society respecting jjopulation —
that is, whatever may be the number of children to a marriage
necessary to maintain exactlj'^ the present population, the price
of labour will be just sufficient to support this number, or be
above it or below it, according to the state of the real funds
for the maintenance of labour, whether stationary, progressive,
or retrograde. . *' Instead, however, of considering it in this
light, we consider it as something which we may raise or
depress at pleasure, something which depends principally
upon his Majesty's justices of the peace. When an advance
in the price of proyisons already expresses that the demand is
too great for the supply, in order to put the labourer in the
game position as before, we raise the price of labour ; that is,
we increase the demand, and are then much surprised that
the price of provisions continues rising. In this we act much
in the same manner as if, when the quicksilver in the
common glass stood at * stormy,' we were to raise it by some
68 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
mechanical pressure to * settled fair,' aud then be greatly-
astonished that it continued raining."
'' In the natural order of things, a scarcity must tend to
lower, instead of to raise, the price of labour. Many men who
would shrink at the proposal of a maximum would propose
themselves that the price of labour should be proportioned to
the price of provisions, and do not seem to be aware that the
two proposals are very nearly of the same nature, and that
both tend directly to famine. It matters not whether we
enable the labourer to purchase the same quantity of pro-
visions which he did before by fixing their price, or by rais-
ing in proportion the price of labour."
These arguments of Mr. Malthus were a death-blow to the
frightful system of the rate in aid of wages which at the early
part of the present century was fast turning England into the
most pauper-ridden country in Europe.
In Chapter VI. of Book iii., Malthus remarks that, indepen-
dently of any considerations respecting a year of deficient
crops, it is evident that an increase of population without a
proportional increase of food must lower the value of each
man's earnings. The food must necessaiily be distributed in
smaller quantities, and consequently a day's labour will pur-
chase a smaller quantity of provisions. An increase in the
price of provisions will arise either from an increase of popu-
lation faster than the means of subsistence, or from a different
distribution of the money of the society.
Speaking uf the Poor Laws of ISUo, hesays: "The Poor
Laws of England tend to depress the general condition of the
poor in two ways. Their fii'st obvious tendency is to increase
population without increasing the food for its support. A poor
man may marry with little or no prospect of being able to
support a family without parish assistance. They maybe said,
therefore, to create the poor which they maintain ; and as the
provisions of the country must, in consequence of the increased
population be distributed to every man in smaller proportions,
it is evident that the labour of those who are not supported by
parish assistance will purchase a smaller quantity of provisions
than before, and consequently many of them must be driven
to apply for assistance.
*' Secondly, the quantity of provisions consumed in work-
aouse.s, upon a part of the society that cannot be considered the
most valuable part, diminishes the shares that would otherwise
belontr to the more industrious and more worthy members, and
OF THOMAS R M.\LT1IUS. ^9
this, in the same manner, forces more to become depenrlent.
If the poor in the workhouses were to live better than thev do
now, this new distribution of the monev of the society would
tend more conspicuously to depress the condition "^of those
out of the workhouse, by occasioning an advance in the price
of provisions."
Fortunately for England, says our author, a spirit of inde-
pendence still remains among the peasantry. The poor laws
are strongly calculated to eradicate this spirit. " They have
succeeded in part : but had they succeeded as completely as
might have been expected, their pernicious tendency would
not have been so long concealed."
The following paragraph has often been cited by violent
democrats as a proof of the hard-heartedness of Mai thus. At
present, few of the ultra-liberal party in this country are ill-
instructed enough to vituperate any one for his opinions in
this matter. " Hard as it may appear," he continues, " in in-
dividual cases, dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.
Such a stimulus seems to be absolutely necessary to promote
the happiness of the general mass of mankind: and every
general attempt to weaken this stimulus, however benevolent
its intention, will always defeat its own purpose. If men be
induced to marry from the mere prospect of parish provision,
they are not only unjustly tempted to bring unhappiness and
dependence upon themselves and children, but they are
tempted, without knowing it, to injure all in the same class
with themselves."
It is very probable that the independence of character of the
English labouring classes was fatally lowered by the system
Malthus complains of, for to this very day, in many counties,
the following experience of our author holds good. '' The
labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression, seem always to live
from hand to mouth. Their present wants employ their whole
attention ; and they seldom think of the future. Even when
they have an opportunity of suving they seldom exercise it ;
but all that they earn beyond their present necessities goes,
generally speaking, to the alehouse. The poor laws may,
therefore, be said to diminish both the power and the will to
save among the common people, and thus to weaken one of
the strongest incentives to sobriety and industry, and conse-
quently to happiness."
No wonder that Thomas Chalmers, the great Scottish
economist, struggled so hard against the introduction of the
70 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
English poor laws into Scotland. That poor law in Scotland
is at present worse administered than it even is in England,
and has done much to create a pauper class. There is, indeed,
but little prospect of another poet like Burns arising in
modern Scotland. " The Cotters' Saturday Night " was
composed when the parish gave discriminating relief onlj to
the worthy and necessitous.
" These evils," says Malthus, "attendant on the poor laws
seem to be irremediable. If assistance is to be distributed to
a certain class of people, a power must be lodged somewhere
of discriminating the proper objects, and of managing the
concerns of the institutions that are necessary ; but any great
interference with the affairs of other people is a species of
tyranny, and in the common course of things, the exercise of
this power may be expected to become grating to those who
are driven to ask for support. The tyranny of justices, church-
wardens, and overseers, is a common complaint among the poor ;
but the fault does not lie so much in these persons, who pro-
bably before they were in power were not more cruel than other
people, but in the nature of all such institutions. I feel per-
suaded that if the poor laws had never existed in this country,
though there might have been a few more instances of very
severe distress, the aggregate mass of happiness among the
common people would have been much greater than it is at
present."
The famous 43rd of Elizabeth, which has been so often
referred to and admired, enacts that the overseers of the poor
*' shall take order from time to time, by and with the consent
of two or more justices, for setting to work the children of all
such whose parents shall not by the said persons be thought
able to keep and maintain their children ; and also such
persons married or unmarried, as having no means to maintain
them, use no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their
living by. And also to raise, weekly or otherwise, by taxation
of every inhabitant, and every occupier of lands in the said
parish (in such competent sums as they shall think fit) a
convenient stock of flax, hemp, wax, thread, iron, and other
necessary ware and stuff, to set the poor to work."
" What is this," exclaims Malthus, " but saying that the
funds for the maintenance of labour in this country may be
increased at will, and without limit, by a Jia/ of Government,
or an assessment of the overseers. Strictly speaking, this
clause is as arrogant and as absurd as if it had enacted thai
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS 71
-two ears of wheat should grow where one only had grown
before. Canute, when he commanded the waves not to wet
his princely foot, did not, in reality, assume a greater power
over the laws of nature. No directions are given to the over-
seers how to increase the funds for the maintenance of labour ;
the necessity of industry, economy, and enlightened exertion,
in the management of agricultural and commercial capital, is
not insisted on for this purpose ; but it is expected that a
■miraculous increase of these funds should immediately follow
an edict of the Grovernment, used at the discretion of some
ignorant parish officers.'*
Mr. Malthus adds to these denunciations of the Poor Law
Act of Elizabeth, as carried out in 1805, the following:
** If this clause were really and bond fide put into exe-
cution, and the shame attending the receiving of parish
relief worn off, every labouring man might marry as early as
he pleased, under the certain prospect of having all his child-
ren properly provided for ; and, as according to the supposition,
there would be no check on population from the consequences
•of poverty after marriage, the increase of population would
be rapid beyond example in old States. After what has been
said in the former part of this work, it is submitted to the
reader whether the utmost exertions of the enlightened go-
vernment could, in this case, make the food keep pace with
the population, much less a more arbitrary effort, the tendency
of which is certainly rather to diminish than to increase the
funds for the maintenance of productive labour."
In the year 1880 it was found by the census of our most
flourishing colony of New Zealand that the population of those
fertile islands had actually been able to double in eleven
years. But, as Mr. Malthus observes : " After a country has
once ceased to be in the peculiar situation of a new colony, we
Bhall always find that in the actual state of its cultivation, or
in that state which may rationally be expected from the most
enlightened government, the increase of its food can never
allow for any length of time an unrestricted increase of po-
pulation, and, therefore, the due execution of the clause in
the 43rd of Elizabeth, as a permanent law, is a physical
impossibility."
One only circumstance, Mr. Malthus seems to think, in the
administration of the English Poor Laws at the commence-
ment of this century prevented them from plunging the coun-
try into ruin. This was the condition that they contained
that each parish should maintain its own poor. " As each
"" THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
pa]-ish he says, ''is obliged to maintain its own poor, it i^
naturally fearful of increasing their numbers, and every land-
holder IS, m consequence, more inclined to pull down than to
build cottages. This deficiency of cottages operates neces-
sarily as a strong check to marriage, and this olieck is probably
the principal reason why we have been able to continue tho-
system of the poor laws so long."
Mr. Malthus' writings made such a powerful impression on
the minds of his contemporaries, that in 1834 an entire revo-
lution took place in the Poor Laws of England and Wales
Mr. Gladstone, m an admirable speech on Free Trade deb
yered in Leeds in the summer of 1881, refers to the passino- oi
this Act as the most beneficent change that had preceded'the
Jong and earnest struggle which immediately followed upon
the principles of Free Trade, and which culminated in 1846-
m the abolition of the duties on food supplies. Mr. John
btuart Mill is enthusiastic in his admiration of the Act of 1834
In his magnificent and well known chapter on Popular Eeme
dies for Low Wages (Book ij. chap. 12, § 2.), he thus speaks-
of the English Law of 1884 :•—
''To give profusely to the people, whether under the namo
ot charity or of employment, without placing them under such
influences that prudential motives shall act powerfully upon
them, is to lavish the means of benefiting mankind without
attainmg the object. Leave the people in a situation in which
their condition manifestly depends upon their number, and the
greatest permanent benefit may be derived from any sacrifice-
made to improve the physical well-being of the present vene-
ration, and raise, by that means, the habits of their children
But remove the regulation of their wages from their own con-
trol ; guarantee to them a certain payment, either by law or
by the feeling of the community ; and no amount of comfort
that you can give them will make either them or their de-
scendents look to to their own self-restraint as the proper
means for preserving them in that state. You will only make
them indignantly claim the continuance of your guarantee to-
themselves, and their full complement of possible'^posterity."
" On these grounds some writers have altogether condemned,
the English Poor Law, and any system of relief to the able-
bodied, at least when uncombined with systematic legal pre-
cautions against over-population. The fainous Act of the 43rd
of Elizabeth undertook, on the part of the public, to provide
work and wages for all the able-bodied : and there is little
doubt that li the intent of that Act had been fully carried out
OF THOMAS R. MALTHU8. 73
and no means had been adopted by the administrators of relief
to neutralize its natural tendencies, the poor-rate would by
this time have absorbed the whole net produce of the land and
labour of the country."
" It is not at all surprising, therefore, that Mr. Malthus and
others should at first have concluded against all Poor Laws
whatever. It required much experience, and careful examina-
tion of different, modes of Poor Law management, to give
assurance that the admission of an absolute right to be sup-
ported at the cost of other people could exi«t in law and in
fact, without fatally relaxing the springs of industry and the-
restraints of prudence. This, however, was fully substantiated
by the investigations of the original Poor Law Commissioners.
Hostile as they are unjustly accused of being to the principle
of legal relief, they are the first who fully proved the com«
Ijatibility of any Poor Law in which a right to relief was
recognised with the permanent interests of the labouring class
and of posterity."
" By a collection of facts, experimentally ascertained in
parishes scattered throughout England, it was shown that the
guarantee of support could be freed from its injurious effects
upon the minds and habits of the people, if the relief, thougli
ample in respect to necessaries, was accompanied with con-
ditions which they disliked, consisting of some restraints on.
their freedom, and the privation of some indulgences."
** Under this proviso it may be regarded as irrevocably es-
tablished that the fate of no member of the community need,
be abandoned to chance ; that society can and therefore ought
to ensure every individual belonging to it against the extreme
of want ; that the condition, even of those who are unable to-
find their own support, need not be one of physical suffering,
or the dread of it, but only of restricted indulgences and en-
forced rigidity of discipline. This is surely something gained
for humanit}^, important in itself, and still more so as a step to
something beyond ; and humanity has no worse enemies than
those who lend themselves, either knowingly or unintention-
ally, to bring odium on this law, or on the principles in which
it originated."
"In the actual circumstances of every country (says Mal-
thus, p. 180, Book iii.) the prolific power of nature seems-
always ready to exert nearly its full force ; but within
the limit of possibility, there is nothing, perhaps, more im-
probable, or more out of the reach of any government to
effect, than the direction of the industry of its subjects in.
"74 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
such a manner as to produce the greatest quantity of sustenance
that the earth could bear. It evidentl}^ could not be done
without the most complete violation of the law of property,
from which everything that is valuable to man has hitherto
■ arisen. Such is the disposition to marry, particularly in very
young people, that if the difi&culties of providing for a family
were entirely removed, very few would remain single at
twenty-two. But what statesman or rational government
•could propose that all animal food should be prohibited, that
no horses should be used for business or pleasure, that all
people should live upon potatoes, and that the whole industry
of the nation should be exerted in the production of them,
•except what was necessary for the mere necessaries of clothing
• and houses. Could such a revolution be effected, would it be
•desirable ; particularly as, in a few years, notwithstanding all
their exertions, want, with less resource than ever, would
inevitably recur."
'' The attempts," says our author, " to employ the poor on
any great sale in manufactures have almost invariably failed,
and the stock and materials have been wasted. In those few
parishes which, by better management of larger funds, have
been enabled to persevere in this system, the effect of these
new manufactures in the market must have been to throw out
•of employment many independent workmen, who were before
•engaged in fabrications of a similar nature. This effect has
been placed in a strong point of view by Daniel De Foe, in an
•address to Parliament, entitled Giving Alms no Charity. Speak-
ing of the employment of parish children in manufactories, he
.says, * For every skein of worsted these poor children spin
i;here must be a skein the less spun by some poor family that
spun it before.' Sir F. M. Eden, on the same subject, ob-
serves, that whether mops and brooms are made by parish
•children or by private workmen, no more can be sold than
the public is in want of."
" It will be said, perhaps, that the same reasoning might
be applied to any new capital brought into competition in a
particular trade or manufacture, which can rarely be done
without injuring, in some degree, those that were engaged in
it before. But there is a material difference in the two cases.
In this, the competition is perfectly fair, and what every man
•on entering his business must lay his account to. He may
rest secure that he will not be supplanted, unless his competi-
tor possess superior skill and industry. In the other case, the
•competition is supported by a great bounty, by which means,
OP THOMAS R MALTHUS. 75
aiotwithstandmg very inferior skill and industry on the part
of his competitors, the independent workman may be under-
•sold, and unjustly excluded from the market. He himself is
made to contribute to this competition against his own earn-
ings, and the funds for the maintenance of labour are thus
turned from the support of a trade which yields a proper profit
to one which cannot maintain itself without a bounty. It
should be observed in general that when a fund for the main-
■tenance of labour is raised by assessment, the greatest part of
it is not a new capital brought into trade, but an old one,
which before was much more profitably employed, turned into
:a new channel. The farmer pays to the poor's rates for the
•encouragement of a bad and unprofitable manufacture what
he would have employed on his land with infinitely more ad-
vantage to his country. In the one case, the funds for the
maintenance of labour are daily diminished ; in the other,
•daily increased. And this obvious tendency of assessments
for the employment of the poor to decrease the real funds for
"the maintenance of labour in any country, aggravates the ab-
surdity of supposing that it is in the power of a government
to find employment for all its subjects, however fast they may
"increase."
It is strange how the present generation begins to forget the
truths that were clearly seen by the one immediately preceding.
We have had a proof of this in the late agitation for Protection
'Versus Free Trade. And on November 5th, 1881, there wai
auother example so given in the case of a deputation of ratepayeri
■of Newington, who waited on Mr. Dodson, the President of the
Xocal Government Board, to ask him to administer out- door re-
lief instead of building a new workhouse at Champion Hill, at %
cost of £200,000. The deputation, which actually contained a
professor of political economy, Mr. Thorold Rogers, urged that
the system of the workhouse test entailed a cost of 7s. a week to
the parish, whereas, if persons were relieved at home, 8s. or 4s.
would be all that would be required. Well might a French eco-
•nomist write an essay upon '* things that are seen, and things
that are not seen " !
Mr. Dodson, in his able reply to this deputation, tried to teach
again the lesson taught by the Poor Law Commissioners in 1884,
that the whole object and system of the Poor Law which was then
•established In this country was, that it should be strictly admin-
istered, with a view simply of testing and checking absolute des-
titution, and no means, no effectual means, had been devised, of
mo testing destitution, except by offering the house : and just in
76 LIFE AND WRITINGS
proportion as the poor-law was strictly administered, so in pro-
portion the entrance to the house was insisted upon as the con-
dition of relief. In the case of out-door relief it was impossible-
absolutely to test the case. Out-door relief could not be closely-
watched. They could not tell, when a man received relief, that
he was not receiving aid from other sources, that he was not earn-
ing something for himself, and might possibly, if he were left to-
his own resources, earn more. This was a system, he said, which
in that way acted as a check upon exertion and upon provi-
dence ; and he need not say that anything which acted as a check-
on these could not result but in the increase of pauperism, the
demoralisation of the working classes, and in increased charges-
upon the ratepayers. Of course, he knew that it was very tempt-
ing, when a case came before them, to relieve a man by out-door
relief. They might give him Is. 6d. and a loaf, or 2s. ; and if
they brought him into the house it would of course cost 4s. or 5s.,
and thus the ratepayers would not, for the moment, have so much
to pay. But the system of the workhouse was not so expensive-
as that, for we knew that not more than one man in ten would go*
into the house. Where ten would accept out- door relief, they
could not get more than one or two who would accept in-door re-
lief. And, besides, they must further remember this , that if they
increased the rates by this system, they were making the prudent-
and industrious man, who maintained himself and his family by
his own labour, support the idlers and vagrants who did not-
make similar exertions. He knew how tempting it was to wish
to save the money of the ratepayers, and at the same time to-
gratify the feelings of humanity to the poor by giving out-door
relief, since it often appeared hard and cruel to compel people to
enter the workhouse, and, as it was said, to *' break up their
homes." But he, Mr. Dodson, reminded his hearers that, as
guardians, they had the administration of the ratepayers' money^
and not the administration of a benevolent fund. They were not.
administering a Charity, but were the stewards for the ratepayers,
and were bound to administer the Poor Law in the manner which,,
not superficially and for the moment, was the most really eco-
nomical. The workhouse test was known by experience to be, in
the long run, the only truly economical and feasible way of ad-
ministering relief to the destitute. For what, he asked, was the-
whole history of the modern English Poor Law ? What was the
condition of England before 1830, when that law was loosely
administered ? It was a system ruinous to the indigent classes^
and destructive to the ratepayers. The Poor Law Commissioners
had shown that the only way in which the people could be^
OF THOMA& R. MALTHUS 77
^aranteed against starvation was by enforcing the workhouse
test, and thus avoiding the creation of a pauper class too numerous
to be alleviated.
It is gratifying to find that Mr. Dodson is so well instructed
in the affairs of the office in which he holds sway. Doubtless,
he is also aware of the grand difiicnlty which opposes all State
assistance of the poor at their own houses, and which consists in
the utter recklessness still so prevalent among the uneducated
-classes as to the size of their families. To give out-door relief in
the present state of public opinion would merely be to offer a
premium upon large families, and this could, of course, only re-
sult in early death, degradation of the family, and a relapse into
barbarism. Even in Australia it has been found possible to raise
^ip a pauper class by such unwise out-door doles, which are no
«harity at all, but merely a means to degrade and enslave the
poorest classes.
^=^4.,^
^
78 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
CHAPTEK X.
WEALTH AS IT AFFECTS THE POOR.
rthe seventh chapter of book III. Mr. Malthus criticises ait
essay of Adam Smith, on " Increasing Wealth as it Affects-
the Condition of the Poor." The professed object of Adam
Smith's enquiry ia the nature and causes of the wealth of
nations. ** There is another, however, perhaps still more in-
teresting (says onr author) which he occasionally mixes with
it. the causes which affect the happiness and comfort of the-
lower orders of society, which in every nation forms the most
numerous class. I am sufficiently aware of the near connec-
tion of these two subjects, and that, generally speaking, the-
causes which contribute to increase the wealth of a state tend
also to increase the happiness of the lower classes of the'
people. But perhaps Dr. Smith has considered these two in-
quiries as still more nearly connected than they really are ;
at least he has not stopped to take notice of those instances,
when the wealth of a society may increase, according to hi&^
definition of wealth, without having a proportional tendency
to increase the comforts of the labouring part of it."
Malthus observes that the comforts of the labouring poor
must necessarily depend upon the funds destined for the
maintenance of labour, and will generally be in proportion to-
the rapidity of their increase. The demand for labour, which
such increase occasions, will of course raise the value of
labour ; and till the additional number of hands required are
reared, the increased funds will be distributed to the same
number of persons as before, and therefore every labourer will
live more at his ease. But Adam Smith was wrong when he
represented every increase of the revenue or stock of a society,.
as a proportional increase of these funds. Such surplus stock
or revenue will indeed always be considered by the indivi-
dual possessing it, as an additional fund from which he may
maintain more labour ; but with regard to the whole country,
it will not be an effectual fund for the maintenance of anr
additional number of labourers, unless part of it be conver-
tible into an additional quantity of provisions ; and it will not
be so convertible when the increase has arisen merely from the
produce of labour, and not from the produce of land. A dis-
tinction may in this case occur between the pumber of hands-
which the stock of a society could employ and the number
which its territory can maintain.
OF THOMAS B. MALTHU8. 79*
" Supposing a nation for a course of years to add what it
saved from its yearly revenue to its manufacturing capital
solely, and not to its capital employed on land, it is evident
that it might grow richer without a power of supporting a
greater number of labourers, and therefore without any in-
crease in the real funds for the maintenance of labour. There
would, notwithstanding, be a demand for labour, from the
extent of manufacturing capital. This demand would of
course raise the price of labour; but if the yearly stock of
provisions in the country were not increasing this rise would
soon turn out merely nominal, as the price of provisions must
necessarily rise with it "
The question is how far wealth increasing in this way has
a tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor. "It
is a self-evident proposition, that any general advance in the
price of labour, the stock of provisions remaining the same,
can only be a nominal advance, as it must shortly be followed
by a proportional rise in provisions. Tlie increase in the price
of labour which we have supposed, would have no permanent
effect therefore in giving to the labouring poor a greater
command over the necessaries of life. In this respect they
would be nearly in the same state as before. In some other
respects they would be in a worse state. A greater portion of
them would be employed in manufactures, and a smaller
portion in agriculture. (The present condition of England
in 1882.) And this exchange of profession will be allowed,
I think, by all to be very unfavourable to health, an essen-
tial ingredient to happiness, and to be further disadvantageous
on account of the greater uncertainty of manufacturing labour,
arising from the capricious tastes of man, the accidents of
war, and other causes which occasionally produce very severe
distress among the lower classes of society."
Mr. Malthus then feelingly alludes to the miserable con-
dition of the poor young operatives in Manchester in his
day, and to the destruction of the comforts of the family so
often caused by the women becoming so frequently mere
hands in mills and quite unacquainted with any household
work. " The females are wholly uninstructed in sewing,
knitting, and other domestic affairs, requisite to make them
notable and frnsjal wives and mothers. This is a very great
misfortune to them and to the public, as is sadly proved by a .
comparison of the families of labourers in husbandry, and
those in manufactures in general. In the former we meet
:80 THE LIFE AND WKI TINGS
with neatness, cleanliness, and comfart: in the latter with
filth, rags, and poverty, although their wages may be nearly
double those of the husbandman. In addition to these evils
we all know how subject particular manufactures are to fail,
from the caprice of taste, or the accident of war. The
weavers of Spitalfield were plunged into the most severe dis-
tress by the fashion of muslins instead of silks ; and numbers
of the workmen of Sheffield and Birmingham were for a
time thrown out of employment, from the adoption of shoe
strings and covered buttons, instead of buckles and metal
buttons. Under such circumstances, unless the increase of the
riches of a country from manufactures <<ives the lower classes
4)f the society, on an average, a decided h' greater command
over the necessaries and conveniences of life, it will not
Appear that their condition is improved."
Mr. Malthus continues : ** It will be said, perhaps, that the
advance in the price of provisions will immediately turn
some additional capital into the channel of agriculture, and
thus occasion a much greater produce. But from experience
it appears that this is au effect which sometimes follows
very slowly, particularly if heavy taxes that affect agricul-
tural industry, and an advance in the price of labour, had
preceded the advance in the price of provisions. It may also
be said, that the additional capital of the nation would
enable it to import provisions sufficient for the maintenance of
those whom its stock could employ. A small country with a
large navy, and great accommodation for 'nland carriage, may
indeed import and distribute an effectual quantity of pro-
visions ; but in large landed nations, if they may be so-called,
an importation adequate at all times to the demand is scarcely
possible."
In 1881 the inhabitants of the British Islands had to im-
port food consisting of live and dead meat, butter, eggs, flour,
and wheat, &c., at an expense of no less than one hundred
and thirty-two millions sterling, inclusive of sugar, one of the
requisites of nutrition, or at the cost of one hundred and
eight millions sterling without sugar. And yet the price of
butter was about Is. 6d. the pound and meat about 9d. a
pound in London, whilst milk sold for 5d. the quart. Thus
we see how true the words of the great writer on population
were, even writing before the days of steam and electric
telegraphs, improvements in the way of obtaining food sup-
plies that might easily' have made food as cheap here as in
New Zealand, had it not been for the excessive birth-rat«
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 81
that has been going on for the whole of this centurj in the
United Kingdom.
Mr. Malthuts points out that a nation which from its ex-
tent and population must necessarily support the greater part
of its population on the produce of its own soil, but which
yet, in average years, draws a small portion of its corn
from abroad, is in a more precarious position with regard to
the constancy of its supplies, than such states as draw almost
the whole of their provisions from other countries. A nation
possessed of a large territory is unavoidably subject to this un-
certainty of its means of subsistence, when the commercial
part of its population is either equal to, or has increased beyond
the surplus produce of its cultivators. ''No reserve being in
these cases left in exportation, the full effect of every deficiency
from unfavorable seasons must necessarily be felt ; and, although
the riches of such a country may enable it for a certain period
to continue raising the nominal rate of wages, so as to give the
lower classes of the society a power of purchasing imported
corn at a high price ; yet, a a sudden demand can very seldom
be fully answered, the competition in the market will in-
variably raise the price of provisions in full proportion to the
advance in the price of labor; the lower classes will be but
little relieved, and the dearth will operate severely throughout
all the ranks of society.
According to the natural order of things, years of scarcity
must occasionally recur in all landed nations. They ought
always therefore to enter into our consideration; and the
prosperity of any country ma}' justly be considered as pre-
carious, in which the funds for the maintenance of labour are
liable to great and sudden fluctuations from every unfavourable
variation in the seasons.
" But putting for the present, years of scarcity out of the
question. When the commercial population of any country
increa.ses so much beyond the surplus produce of the cultivators,
that the demand for imported corn is not easily supplied, and
the price rises in proportion to the rate of wages, no further
increase of riches will have any tendency to give the laborer a
greater command over the necessaries of life. In the progress
of wealth this will naturally take place, either from the large-
ness of the supply wanted, the increased distance from which
it is brought, and consequently, the increased expense of im-
portation ; the greater consumption of it in the countries in
which it is usually purchased, or, what must unavoidably
82 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
happen, the necessity of a greater distance of inland carriage
in these countries. Such a nation, by increasing industry in
the improvement of machinery, may still go on increasing the
yearly quantity of its manufactured produce ; but its funds for
the maintenance of labor, and consequently its population, will
be perfectly stationary. This point is the natural limit to the
population of all commercial states. In countries at a great
distance from this limit, an effect approaching to what has been
here described will take place, whenever the march of com-
merce and manufactures is more rapid than that of agriculture.'*
Malthus takes China as an example, that every increase in
the stock or revenue of a nation cannot be considered as an
increase of the real funds for the maintenance of labor, and
therefore cannot have the same good effect upon the condition
of the poor. China, as Adam Smith remarked, has probably
long been as rich as the nature of her laws and institutions will
admit ; although, with other laws and institutions, and on the
supposition of unshackled foreign commerce, she might still be
richer, yet, the question is, would such an increase of wealth
be an increase of the real funds for the maintenance of labor,
and consequently tend to place the lower classes in China in a
state of greater plenty ?
Malthus contends that if trade and foreign commerce were
held in great honour in China, it is evident that, from the great
number of laborers, and the cheapness of labor, she might work
up manufactures for foreign sale to an immense amount. It is
equally evident, that from the great bulk of provisions, and
the amazing extent of her inland territory, she could not in
Tseturn import such a quantity as would be any sensible addition
to the annual stock of subsistence in the country. "Her
immense amount of manufactui es therefore, she would exchange
chiefly for luxuries collected from all parts of the world. At
present it appears that no labor whatever is spared in the
production of food. The country is rather over-peopled in
proportion to what its stock can employ, and labor is therefore
so abundant that no pains are taken to abridge it. The con-
sequence of this is probably the greatest production of food that
the soil can possibly afford ; for it will be generally observed,
that processes for abridging agricultural labor, though they may
enable a farmer to bring a certain quantity of grain cheaper to
market, tend rather to diminish, than increase the whole
produce. An immense capital could not be employed in China
in preparing^ manufactures for foreign trade, without taking off
60 man}' laborers from agriculture, as to alter this state of
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 83
things, and in some degree, to diminish the produce of the
country. The demand for manufacturing laborers would
naturally raise the price of labor ; but, as the quantity of sub-
sistence would not be increased, the price of provisions would
keep pace with it, or even more than keep pace with it, if the
quantity of provisions were really decreasing. The country
would, however, be evidently advancing in wealth. The ex-
changeable value of the annual produce of its land and labor
would be annually augmented ; yet the real funds for the
maintenance of labor would be stationary, or even declining;
and consequently, the increasing wealth of the nation would
tend rather to depress than to raise the condition of the poor.
With regard to the command over the necessaries of life, they
would be in the same, or rather worse state than before, and a
great part of them would have exchanged the healthy labor of
agriculture, for the unhealthy occupations of manufacturing
industry."
The observations of the greatest living Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, of late years, have frequently
pointed out to us how very unfair a proportion of the increasing
wealth of this country has been absorbed by the possessors of cap-
ital, as compared with that by the recipients of wages. It may
indeed be said, in the words of Mr. J. S. Mill, that owing to
the way in which population has increased in this century in
this country, pari passu with the increase of the wealth of the
nation, it is doubtful whether all the improvements in
manufactures and in instruments for abbreviating manual toil
have taken one hour's work from the shoulders of the working
classes.
"The condition of the poor in China," says Malthus, '^is
indeed very miserable at present, but this is not owing to their
want of foreign commerce, but to their extreme tendency to
marriage and increase ; and if this tendency were to continue
the same, the only way in which the introduction of a greater
number of manufacturers could possibly make the lower classes
of people richer, would be by increasing the mortality among
them, which is ceitainly not a very desirable mode of growing
rich." This argument of our author might convince both the
fair traders and the free traders of this day, that neither free
trade, nor protection, are panaceas against starvation among the
poorest classes, and make them learn the lesson that a email
family system alone can solve the fundamental question of
84 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
man's destiny — how to make the proportion of months to food
most favorable.
The argument perhaps appears clearer when applied to-
China, because it is generally allowed that its wealth has been
long stationary, and its soil cultivated nearly to the utmost.
AVith regard to any other country it might always be a matter
of dispute, at whicl3 of the two periods compared wealth was
increasing the fastest, for Adam Smith, and others of his-
followers think that the condition of the poor depends on the
rapidity of the increase of wealth at any particular epoch.
Malthus to this replit^s that: '*It is evident that two nations-
might increase exactly with the same rapidity in the exchange-
able value of the annual products of their land and labor; yet,
if one had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, and the other
chiefly to commerce, the funds for the maintenance of labor,,
and consequently the effect of the increase of wealth in each
nation, would be extremely different. In that which had
applied itself chiefly to agriculture, the poor would live in
greater plenty, and population vvould rapidly increase. In
that which had applied itself chiefly to commerce the poor
would be comparatively but little benefited, and consequently,
population would either be stationary, or increase very slowly."'
" The condition," says IMalthus, " of the laboring poor, suppos-
ing their habits to remain the same, cannot be very essentially
improved, but by giving them a greater command over the
means of subsistence. But any advantage of this kind must
from its nature be temporary, and is therefore really of less
/alue to them than any permanent change in their habits. But
manufactures, by inspiring a taste for comforts, tend to pro-
mote a fav(M-able change in these habits, and in this way
perhaps c«mnterbalance all their disadvantages. The labor-
ing classes of society, in nations merely agricultural, are-
generally on The whole poorer than in manufacturing nations,
tbougli less subject to those occasional variations which among
manufacturers often produce the most severe distress.
There are two chapieis in Malthus's second volume devoted
to the cousideraticm of the Agricultural and Commercial
Systems about which so much was written by his contem-
poraries. Mr. IMakhus says in Chapter VIII. that there are
none of the definitions of the wealth of a state that are not
liable to some objections. If the gross produce <>f the land be
taken as indicating wealth, it is clear that this may increase-
very rapidly whilst the nation is very poor, and, wealth again
may increase without tending to increase the funds for the'
OF THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 85
'maintenance ot labor and population. " Whichever of thehe
definitions is adopted, the position of the economists will remain
"true, that the ssurphis jirodnce of the cultivators is the ^reat
fund which ultimately pays all not employed in the land.
Thronghout the whole world the number of manufacturers,
of proprietors, and of persons engaged in the various civil and
mih't ;ry professions must be exactly proportional to the surplus
) -rod lice, and cnnnot in the natme of things increase beyond
it. If the earth had been so niggardlj^ of her pi-odiice as to
oblige all her inhabitants to labor for it, no manufacturer or
idle persons could ever have existe 1. Bnt her first intercourse
with man was a voluntary piesent, not ver}' large indeed, but
suflftcient as a fund for his subsistence, till by the proper
•exercise of his faculties he could produce a greater. In pro-
portion as the laboiand ingenuity of man increased, again, the
land has increased this surjjliis produce; leisure has been given
to a greater number of ])ersons to employ themselves in all the
inventions which embellish civilised life ; and, although in its
tui-n, the desire to profit by these inventions has greatly con-
tributed to stimulate the cultivators to increase their surplus
produce ; yet the order of precedence is clearly the surplus
produce, because the funds for the subsistence of the manu^
facturer must be advanced to him before he can complete his
work."
'' In the history of the world," says Malthus, "the nations
whose wealth has been derived principally from manufactures
and commerce, have been perfectly ephemeral beings, compared
with those whose wealth has been agiiculture. It is in the
nature of things that a state which subsists upon a revenue
furnished by other countries, must be infinitely more exposed
to all the accidents of time and chance, than one which pro-
duces its own. No error is more frequent than that of mistaking
effects for causes. We are so blinded by the shrewdness of
■commerce and manufactures, as to believe that they are almost
the sole cause of the wealth, power, and prospeiity of England ;
but perhaps they may be more justly considered as the con-
sequence, than the cause of the wealth. According to the de-
finition of the economists, which considers only the produce of
land, Englam^ is the richest country in Europe, in proportion
to her size. Her system of agriculture is beyond comparison
better, aiid consequently, her surplus produce is more con-
siderable. France is very greatly superior to England in
•extent of territory and population ; but when the surplus
produce, or disposable revenue of the two nations are com-
^6 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
pared, the superiority of France almost vanishes. According
to the returns lately made of the population of England and
Wales, it appears that the number of persons employed in
agriculture is considerably less than a fifth part of the whole.'^
This was written by Malthus in 1806, and it is curious to
contrast the state of matters which now exists in the
United Kingdom. In 1881 she consumed 1,740,000 tons
of meat, and only produced 1,090,000 of these herself. She
also consumed 607 millions of bushels of grain, and pro-
duced only 322 millions of these, so that, although her agri-
cultural skill has greatly increased since the days of Malthus,.
she impoiis nearly half of her grain and one-third of her meat
supplies.
Malthus was of opinion that the National Debt of England
was chiefly injurious because it absorbed the redundancy of
commercial capital and kept up the rate of interest, thus pre-
venting capital from overflowing upon the soil. He thought
that thus a large mortgage had been established on the lands
of England, the interest of which was drawn from the pay-
ment of productive labor, and dedicated to the support of idle
consumers. " It must be allowed, therefore, upon the whole,
that our commerce heis not done so much for our agriculture,
as our agriculture has done for our commerce ; and that the
improved system of cultivation which has taken place, in spite
of considerable discouragements, creates yearly a surplus produce
which enables the country, with but little assistance, to sup-
port so vast a body of people engaged in pursuits unconnected
with the land."
About the middle of the eighteenth century, England, saya
our author, was genuinely, and in the strict sense of the econ-
omists, an agricultural nation. With London containing a
population of more than four millions, and our other immense
cities, this description of England is now quite out of place.
About the middle of the last century, says Malthus, we-
were genuinely, and in the strict sense of the economists,.
an agricultural nation. '' We have now, however, slipped out
of the agricultural system into a state in which the commer-
cial system clearly predominates, ; and there is but too much
reason to fear that even our consumers and manufacturers will,
ultimately feel the disadvantage of the change. When a.
country in average years grows more wheat than it consumes,
and is in the habit of exporting a part of it, those great varia-
tions of price which from the competition of commercial
wealth, often produce lasting effects, cannot occur to the same*
OF THOMAS B. MALTHUS 87
extent. The wages of labour can never rise very much above
the common price in other com tnercial countries ; and under
such circumstances England would have nothing to fear from
the fullest and most open competition."
Our author thinks (chap. ix. book iii.) that if we were to
lower the price of labour by encouraging the import of foreign
corn, we should probably aggravate our evils. The decline in
our agriculture would be certain. The British grower could
not, in his own markets, stand the competition of foreign
growers, in average years. Arable lands of a moderate quality
would hardly pay the expenses of cultivation. Rich soils alone
would yield a rent. Round our towns the appearance would
be the same as usual ; but in the interior of the country much
of the land would be neglected, and almost universally, where
it was practicable, pasture would take the place of tillage.
This state of things would continue till the equilibrium was
restored, either by the fall of British rent and wages, or an
advance in foreign corn, or, what is more probable, by the
union of both causes. But a period would have elapsed of
considerable relative encouragement to manufactures, and re-
lative discouragement to agriculture. A certain portion of
capital would be taken from the land, and when the equilib-
rium was at length restored, the nation would probably be
found dependent upon foreign supplies for a great portion of
its subsistence : and unless some particular cause were to
occasion a foreign demand greater than the home demand, its
independence, in this respect, would not be recovered. In the
natural course of things, a country which depends for a con-
siderable part of its supply of corn upon its poorer neighbours
may expect to see this supply gradually diminish, as those
countries increase in riches and population, and have less sur-
plus produce to spare.
This last remark of Malthus has been verified of late years
in Europe, for countries from which we used some few years
back to receive a considerable amount of our supplies of meat
and grain, have now become competitors with us for supplies
of these articles from the United States and Australasia. And
for other countries his further remark holds true, that the
political relations of such a country may expose it, during a
war, to have that part of its supply of provisions which it de-
rives from foreign states suddenly stopped or greatly di-
minished ; an event which could not take place without pro-
ducing the most calamitous effects. "A nation," he continues,
''in which agrioidtural wealth predominates, though it may
88 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
not produce at home such a surplus of luxuries and con-
veniences as the commercial nation, and may therefore be ex-
posed possibly to some want of these commodities, has, on the
other hand, a surplus of that article which is essential to the
well-being of the whole state, and is therefore secure from
want in what is of the greatest importance. And if we cannot
be so sure of the supply of what we derive from others, as of
what we produce at home, it seems to be an advantageous
policy in a nation whose territory will allow of it, to secure a
surplus of that commodity, a deficiency of which would strike
most deeply at its happiness and prosperity."
Malthus held that there is no branch of trade more pro-
fitable to a country, even in a commercial point of view,
than the sale of rude produce. And here he seems to have
disagreed with Adam Smith's views. That illustrious writer
on Wealth observes that a trading and manufacturing country
exports what can subsist and accommodate but very few, and
imports the subsistence and accommodation of a great number.
The other exports the subsistence and accommodation of a
great number, and imports that of a very few only. The in-
habitants in the one must enjoy, said Adam Smith, a much
greater quantity of subt^istence than what their own land, in
the actual state of cultivation, could afford. The inhabitants
of the other must always enjoy a much smaller quantity,
Malthus demurs to much of this argument ef Adam Smith.
For, says he, ^M hough the manufacturing nation may export a
commodity which, in its actual shape, can only subsist and
accommodate a very few, yet it must be recollected that in
order to prepare this commodity for exportation, a considerable
part of the revenue of the country has been employed in sub-
sisting and accommodating a great number of workmen. And
with regard to the subsistence and accommodation which the
other nation exports, whether it be of a great or a small
number, it is certainly no more than sufficient to replace the
subsistence that has been consumed in the manufacturing
nation, together with the profits of the master manufacturer
and merchant, which probably, are not so great as the profits
of the farmer and the merchant in the agricultural nation ;
and, though it may be true that the inhabitants of the manu-
facturing nation enjoy a greater quantity of subsistence than
what their own lands in the actual state of their cultivation
could afford, yet an inference in favour of the manufacturing
system bj- no means follows, because the adoption of the one
or the other system will make the greatest difference in their
or THOMAS B. MALTHUa. 99
aotnal state of cnltivation. If, during the course of a oentnrfy
"two landed nations were to pursue these two different systemi,
that is, if one of them were regularly to export manufacture
and import subsistence, and the other to export subsistence and
import manufacture, there would be no comparison at the end
of the period between the state of cultivation in the two
countries; and no doubt could rationally be entertained that
the country which exported its raw produce would be able to
subsist and accommodate a muoh larger population than the
other."
It is a matter, says our author, of very little comparative
importance, whether we are fully supplied with broadcloth,
linens, and muslins, or even with tea, sugar, and coffee, and no
rational politician therefore would think of proposing a bounty
on such commodities. "But it is certainly a matter of the
very highest importance, whether we are fully supplied with
food ; and if a bounty would produce such a supply, the most
liberal economist might be justified in proposing it, considering
food as a commodity distinct from all others, and pre-eminentlj
Talnabl©.'*
«f4^^^^
90 fHE LIFE A14D WKIZIN03
CHAPTER XI.
IN Chapter X. Mr. Malthus treats of bounties on the expor-
tation of corn. He sets out by observing that according-
to the general principles of political economy, it cannot be-
doubted, that it is for the interest of the civilised world that
each nation should purchase its commodities wherever they
can be had the cheapest.
" During the seventeenth century, and indeed the whole
period of our history previous to it, the prices of wheat were
subject to great fluctuations, and the average price was very
high. For fifty years before the year 1700, the average price
of wheat per quarter was £3 Os. lid., and before 1650 it was
£6 8s. lOd. From the time of the completion of the corn
laws in 1700 and 1706, the prices became extraordinarily
steady, and the average price for forty years previous to the-
year 1750, sunk as low as £1 16s. per quarter. This was the-
period of our greatest exportations. In 1757 the laws were
suspended, and in 1773 they were totally altered. The exports
of corn have since been regularly decreasing, and the imports
increasing. The average price of wheat for the forty years
ending in 1800, was £2 9s. 5d., and for the last five years of
this period £3 6s. 6d. During this last term the balance of
the imports of all sorts of grain is estimated at 2,938,357."
Mr. Malthus observes that it is totally contrary to the habits
and practice of farmers to save the superfluity of six or seven
years. Great practical inconvenience generally attends the
keeping of so large a reserved store. Difficulties often occur
from a want of proper accommodation for it. It is at all times
liable to damage from vermin and other causes. When very
large it is apt to be viewed with a jealous and grudging eye
by the common people. And in general, the farmer may
either not be able to remain so long without the returns, or
may not be willing to employ so considerable a capital in a
way in which the returns must necessarily be distant and
precarious.
Mr. Malthus was in favour of a bounty on the exportation of
corn, because the effect of such a bounty was to lepress slightly
the iuoreaae ^i population in years of plenty, whilst it en-
OF THOMAS R. MALTHU8 91
oonraged it comparatively in years of scarcity. This effect, he
maintained, was one of the greatest advantages which could
possibly occur to a society, and contributed more to the
happiness of the labouring poor than could easily be conceived
by those who had not deeply considered the subject. " In
the whole compass of human events," he says, "I doubt if there
be a more fruitful source of misery, or one more invariably
productive of disastrous consequences, than a sudden start of
population from two or three years of plenty, which must
necessarily be repressed on the first return of scarcity, or even
of average crops." From 1637 to 1700, both inclusive, the
average price of corn, according to Adam Smith, was £2 lis.;
yet in 1681 the growing price was only £1 8s. This high
average price, according to Malthus, would not proportionally
encourage the cultivation of corn. Though the farmer might
feel very sanguine during one or two years of high price, and
project many improvements, yet the glut in the market which
would follow, would depress him in the same degree, and de-
stroy all his projects. Sometimes, indeed, a year of high
prices really tends to impoverish the land, and prepare the
way for future scarcity.
In a foot-note in page 264, Chapter X., Mr. Malthus makes
the remark that, '* On account of the tendency of population
to increase in proportion to the means of subsistence, it had
been supposed by some that there would always be a sufficient
demand at home for any quantity of corn which could be
grown. But this is an error. It is undoubtedly true that if
the farmers could gradually increase their growth of corn to-
any extent, and could sell it sufficiently cheap, a population
would arrive at home to demand the whole of it. But in this^
case, the great increase of demand arises solely from the cheap-
ness, and must therefore be totally of a different nature from
such a demand as, in the actual circumstances of this country,
would encourage an increased supply. If the makers of super-
fine broadcloth would sell their commodity for a shilling a
yard, instead of a guinea, it cannot be doubted that the de-
mand would increase more than tenfold, but the certainty of
such an increase of demand, in such a case, would have no
tendency whatever, in the actual circumstances of any known
country, to encourage the manufacture of broad cloths."
In page 267 Mr. Malthus adverts to what has recently been
commented upon by a great French statistician, Mr. Maurice
Block, viz. : the danger of a country becoming too dependent
on others for its supplies of food. " A rich and oommerciai
•^2 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
nation is by the natural course of things led more to pasture
than to tillage, and is tempted to become daily moie dependent
upon others for its supplies of corn. If all the nations of
Europe could be considered as one great country, and if any
one state could be as sure of its supplies from others, as the
pasture district of a particular state are from the corn dis-
tricts in their neighbourhood, there would be no harm in this
dependence, and no person would think of proposing corn
laws. But can we safely consider Europe in this light? The
fortunate condition of this country, and the excellence of its
laws and government, exempt it. above any other nation, from
foreign invasion and domestic tumult, and it is a pardonable
love for one's country, which under such circumstances pro-
duces an unwillingness to expose it, in so important a point as
the supply of its principal food, to share in the dangers and
•chances which may happen on the Continent. How would
the miseries of France have been aggravated duriug the revo-
lution if she had been dependent on foreign countries for the
support of two or three millions of her people."
It is instructive to read what was thought might be the
magnitude of our future imports of wheat in 1806. In page 268
Mr. Malthus writes : " We can hardly doubt that in the course
•of some years we shall draw from America, and the nations
l)ordering on the Baltic, as much as two millions of quarters
•of wheat, besides other corn, the support of above two
millions of people. If under these circumstances, any com-
mercial discussion, or other dispute, were to arise with these
nations, with what a weight of power they would have to
negociate ! Not the whole British Navy could offer . a mortf
convincing argument than the single threat of shutting ail
their ports. I am not unaware that in general, we may
^securely depend upon people not acting directly contrary to
their interest. But this consideration, all powerful as it is,
will sometimes yield voluntarily to national indignation, and
it is sometimes forced to yield to the resentment of a sove-
reign. It is of sufficient weight in practice when applied to
manufactures ; because a delay in their sale is not of such im-
mediate consequence. But in the case of corn, a delay of
three or four months may produce the most complicated
misery ; and from the great bulk of corn, it will generally be
in the power of the sovereign to execute almost completely
his resentful purpose." This is the argument of Mr. Block,
with respect to our dependence on the United States for so
much of our food supplies. He remarks that it might easily
OF TH03f AS R. MALTHUS. 9^v
happen that some party in the United States might take to-
prohibiting the export of corn, and in such a case there can
be no doubt that the people of this country would at once be-
plunged into the severest trouble with respect to their food
supplies. A war with the United States is of couise most
unlikely, too, but alas ! even such a catastrophe is possible in.
the present position of human affairs.
The argument made use of by M. Maurice Block, that, in
times of war, Great Britain may possibly in some future time
be in danger of seeing much of its population starved from
want of food supplies, was anticipated by Mai thus in a foot
note in chapter x. He there says : — " I should be misunder-
stood if, from anything I have said in the four last chapters,
I should be considered as not sufficiently aware of the advan-.
tages derived from commerce and manufactures. I look upon
them as the most distinguishing characteristics of civilization,
the most obvious and striking marks of the improvement of
society, and calculated to enlarge our enjoyments, and add to
the sum of human happiness. No great surplus of agriculture-
could exist without them, and if it did exist, it would be com-
paratively of very little value. But still they are rather the
ornaments and embellishments of the political structure than
its foundations. While these foundations are perfectly secure,.
we cannot be too solicitous to make all the apartments con-
venient and elegant : but if there be the slightest reason to
fear that the foundations themselves may give way, it seems
to be folly to continue directing our principal attention to tho
less essential parts. There has never yet been an instance in
history of a large nation continuing with undiminished vigour
to support four or five millions of its people on imported corn ;
nor do I believe that there ever will be such an instance in
future. England is, undoubtedly, from her insular situation
and commanding navy, the most likely to form an exception
to this rule ; but in spite even of the peculiar advantages of
England, it appears to me clear that if she continues yearly to-
increase her importations of corn, she cannot ultimately
escape that decline which seems to be the natural and
necessary consequence of excessive commercial wealth..
I am not now speaking of the next twenty or thirty
years, but of the next two or three hundred. And
though we are little in the habit of looking so far forward,
yet it may be questioned whether we are not bound in duty to>
make some exertions to avoid a system which must necessarily
terminate in the weakness and decline of our posterity. But
•94 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
-whether we make any practical application of such a discus-
sion or not, it is curious to contemplate the cause of those
reverses in the fate of empires, which so frequently changed
the face of the world in past times, and may be expected to
produce similar, though perhaps not such violent changes in
future. War was undoubtedly, in ancient times, the principal
cause of these changes ; but it frequently only finished a work
which excess of luxury and agriculture had begun. Foreign
invasions, or internal convulsions, produced but a temporary
and comparatively slight eiSfect upon such countries as Lombard y,
Tuscany, and Flanders, but are fatal to such states as Holland
and Hamburg, and though the commerce and manufactures
of England will probably always be supported in a great
degree by her agriculture, yet that part which is not so sup-
ported will still remain subject to the reverses of dependent
states."
Writing in 1806, Mr. Malthus adds : — " We should recollect
that it is only within the last twent}' or thirty years that we
have become an imjDorting nation. In so short a period it
could hardly be expected that the evils of the system should
be perceptible. We have, however, already felt some of its
inconveniences ; and if we persevere at it, its evil conse-
quences may by no means be a matter of remote speculation."
En the eleventh chapter of his third book our author treats
of the prevailing errors respecting population and plenty,
and notices some of the arguments which have this very year
(1883) been put forward, over and over a£*.n, by the disciples
of Mr. Henry George, an American writer who has acquired
a sudden celebrity for his work on "Progress and Poverty."
** It has been observed," says Mr. Malthus, *' that many
countries at the period of their greatest degree of populousness
have lived in the greatest plenty, and have been able to
export corn ; but at other periods, when their population was
very low, have lived in continual poverty and want, and have
been obliged to import corn. Egypt, Palestine, Rome, Sicily,
and Spain are cited as particular examples of this fact : and
it has been inferred that an increase of population in any
state, not cultivated to the utmost, will tend rather to aug-
ment than diminish the relative plenty of the whole
society ; and that, as Lord Kaimes observes, a country cannot
■easily become too populous for agriculture, because agriculture
has the signal property of producing food in proportion to
the number of consumers The prejudices on the
fiubject of population bear a very striking resemblance to the
OF THOMAS B. MALTHU8 96
old prejudices about specie, and we know how slowly and
-with, what difficulty these last have yielded to juster concep-
tions. Politicians, observing that states which were power-
ful and prosperous were almost invariably populous, have
mistaken an effect for a cause, and concluded that their popu-
lation was the cause of their prosperity, instead of their
prosperity being the cause of their population ; as the old
3)olitical economists concluded, that the abundance of specie
was the cause of national wealth, instead of the effect of it.
The annual produce of the land and labour, in both of these
instances, became in consequence a secondary consideration,
and its increase, it was conceived, would naturally follow the
increase of specie in the one case, or of population in the
other. Yet surely the folly of endeavouring to increase the
quantity of specie in any country without an increase of the
commodities which it is to circulate, is not greater than that
•of endeavouring to increase the number of people without an
increase of the food which is to maintain them ; and it will
be found that the level above which no human laws can raise
the population of a country, is a limit more fixed and im-
passable than the limit to the accumulation of specie."
** Ignorance and despotism seem to have no tendency to de-
€troy the passions which prompt to increase ; but they effect-
ually destroy the checks to it from reason and foresight. The
improvident barbarian who thinks only of his present wants,
or the miserable peasant, who, from his political situation,
feels little security of reaping what he has sown, will seldom
be deterred from gratifying his passion by the prospect of
inconvenience, which cannot be expected to press upon him
under three or four years. Industry cannot exist without fore-
sight and security. Even poverty itself, which appears to be
the great spur to industry, when it has passed certain limits
almost ceases to operate. The indigence which is hopeless
destroys all vigorous exertion, and confines the efforts to what
ie sufficient for bare existence. It is the hope of bettering our
condition, and the fear of want rather than want itself, that is
the best stimulus to industry ; and its most constant and best
directed efforts will almost invariably be found among a class
of people above the class of the wretchedly poor."
This remark of Mai thus is a reply to those who say that if
food were cheaper and the poor better fed, they would only
work as much as was needed to get a scanty supply of food.
Experience in our colonies and in the United States shows that
the fear of want is an incentive to make the early colonists of a
96 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
fertile country fervid in their desire to obtain wealth.
** That an increase of population," says Malthus, *' when it-
follows in its natural order, is both a great positive good iiL
itself, and absolutely necessary to a further increase in the-
annual produce of the land and labour of any country, I
should be the last to deny. The onl}' question is, What is
the natural order of this progress ? In this point. Sir James-
Stewart appears to me to have fallen into an error. He de-
termines that multiplication is the etiicient cause of agricul-
ture, and not agriculture of multiplication ; but though it may
be allowed that the increase of people beyond what could easily
subsist on the natural fruits of the earth, first pi'ompted man
to till the ground: and that the view of maintaining a family,
or of obtaining some valuable consideration in exchange for-
the products of agriculture, still operates as the principal
stimulus to cultivation ; yet it is clear that these products, in
their actual state, must be beyond the lowest wants of the
existing population before any permanent increase can possibly
be supported. We know that a multiplication of births has
in numberless instances taken place, which has produced no-
effect upon agriculture, and has merely been followed by an
increase of diseases : but perhaps there is no instance where a.
permanent increase of agriculture has not a permanent
increase of population, somewhere or other. Consequently
agriculture may with more propriety be termed the efficient
cause of ])Opulation, than population of agriculture, though
they certainly react upon each other, and are mutually
necessary to each other's support."
"The author of * L'Ami des Hommes ' (Mirabeau's father),,
in a chapter on the effects of a decay in agriculture upon
population, acknowledges that he had fallen into a fundamental
error in considering population as the source of revenue : and
that he was afterwards convinced that revenue was the source
of population. From a want of attention to this most im-
portant distinction, statesmen, in pursuit of the desirable-
object of population^ have been led to encourage early
marriages, to reward the fathers of families, and to disgrace-
celibacy ; but this, as the same author justly observes, is to-
dress and M'ater a piece of land without sowing it, yet to-
expect a crop." It is curious that so back wai'd is speculation
on this question even in modern France, the most practical
Neo-Malthusian country in Europe, that this year has already
seen two proposals made by learned FrenLihmen to encourage
marriage and large families. The first emanated from the-
OF THOMA.s R. MA I fHUS.
97
eon of one of the most distinguished surgeons of Paris, Dr.
Eichet ; the other from a member of the French Corps
Legislatif.
" Among the other prejudices," says Malthus, '' which hare
prevailed on the subject of population, it has been generally
thought that while there is either waste among the rich, or
laud remaining uncultivated in any country, the complaints
for want of food cannot be justly founded, or at least that the
presence of distress among the poor is to be attributed to the
ill-conduct of the higher classes of society and the bad man-
agement of the land. The real effect, however, of these two
circumstances is merely to narrow the limit of the actual
population ; but they have little or no influence on what may
be called the average pressure of distress on the poorer mem-
bers of society. If our ancestors had been so frugal and in-
dustrious, and had transmitted such habits to their posterity,
that nothing superfluous was consumed by the higher classes,
no horses were used for pleasure, and no land was left uncul-
tivated, a striking difference would appear in the state of the
actual population, but piobably none whatever in the state of
the lower classes of people, with respect to the price of labour
and the facility of supporting a family. The waste among the
rich, and the horses kept for pleasure, have indeed a little the
effect of the consumption of grain in distilleries, noticed before
with regard to China. On the supposition that the food con-
sumed in this manner may be withdrawn on the occasion of a
scarcity, and be applied to the relief of the poor, they operate
certainly as far as they go, like granaries which are only
opened at the time that they are wanted, and must therefore
tend rather to benefit than to injure the lower classes of so-
ciety.
" With regard to uncultivated land," says our author, " it is
evident that its effect upon the poor is neither to injure nor to
benefit them. The sudden cultivation of it would undoubtedly
tend to improve their condition for a time, and the
»^eglect of lands before cultivated will certainly make their
situation worse for a certain period ; but when no changes of
this kind are going forward the effect of uncultivated land on
the lower class operates merely like the possession of a smaller
territory. It is indeed a point of very great importance to
the poor whether a country is in the habit of exporting or im-
porting corn ; but this point is not necessarily connected with
the complete or incomplete cultivation of the whole territory,
but depends upon the proportion of the surplus produce to those
98 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
who are supported by it ; and in fact this proportion is gener-
ally the greatest in countries which have not yet completed
the cultivation of their territory.
*' We should not, therefore, be too ready to make inferences
against the internal economy of a country from the appearance
of uncultivated heaths, without other evidence. But the fact
is, that no country has ever reached, or probably ever will
reach, its highest possible acme of produce, it appears always
as if the want of industr3^ or the ill-direction of that industry,
was the actual limit to a further increase of produce and popu-
lation,and not the absolute refusal of nature to yield anymore;
but a man who is locked up in a room may be fairh^ said to be
confined by the walls of it, though he may never touch them ;
and with regard to the principle of population, it is never the
question whether a country will produce any more, but whether
it may be made to produce a sufficiency to keep pace with an
unchecked increase of people. In China the question is not,
whether a certain additional quantity of rice might be raised
by improved culture, but whether such an addition could be
counted on during the next twenty-five j'ears as would be suf-
ficient to support an additional three hundred millions of
people. And in this country it is not the question whether,
by cultivating all our commons,, we could raise considerably
more than at present : but whether we could raise sufficient
for a population of twenty millions in the next twenty-five
years and forty millions in the next fifty years.
" The allowing of the produce of the earth to be absolutely
unlimited scarcely removes the weight of a hair from the argu-
ment, which depends entirely upon the differently increasing
ratios of population and food ; and all that the most enlight-
ened governments and the most persevering and best guided
efforts of industry can do, is to make the necessary checks to
population act more equably, and in a direction to produce
the least evil ; but to remove them is a task absolutely hope-
less."
We have now arrived at the last part of Malthus's great essay
on population. In Book IV. our author speaks in chapter i.
of future prospects of the removal or mitigation of the evils
arising from the principle of population. He shows that we
must submit to the population law as an ultimate law of nature,
and that all that remains for us is, how we may check popu-
lation with the least prejudice to the virtue and happiness of
human society. He claims for moral restraint that it is the
least harmful of all the checks. " If we be intemperate ia
OF TII03IAS U. MAT/niUS. 99
eating and drinking (he says) we are disordered ; if we in-
dulge the transi^orts of anger, we seldom fail to commit actg
of which we afterwards repent ; if we multiply too fast, we
die miserably of poverty and contagious diseases The kind
of food, and the mode of preparing it, best suited for the pur-
poses of nutriment and the gratification of the palate, 'sic,
were not pointed out to the attention of man at once, but were
the slow and late result of experience, and of the admonitions
received by repeated failures."
Mr. Malthus then, following Hippocrates, points out that
in the history of every epidemic, it has almost invariably been
observed, that the lower classes of people, whose food was
poor and insufficient, and who lived crowded together in small
and dirty houses, were the principal victims. " In what other
manner can nature point out to us, that if we increase too fa.st
for the means of subsistence, so as to render it necessary for a
•considerable part of the society to live in this miserable man-
ner, we have offended against one of her laws ?" After the
desire of food, the most powerful and general of our desires is
passion between the sexes, taken in an enlarged sense. Mr.
Godwin had said, in one of his works : '' Strip the commerce
of the sexes of all its attendant cii'cumstances, and it would be
generally despised." To this Mr. Malthus replies, that God-
win might as well say to a man who admired trees : " Strip
them of their spreading branches and lovely foliage, and what
beauty can you see in a bare pole?" ''The evening meal, the
warm house, and the comfortable fire-side would lose half of
their interest if we were to exclude the idea of some object of
affection with whom they were to be shared."
Few or none, then, of our human passions would admit of
being greatly diminished, without narrowing the sources of
good more pov/erfully than the sources of evil. The fecundity
of the human species is, in some respects, a distinct considera-
tion from the passion between the sexes. It is strong and
general, and apparently would not admit of any very consider-
able diminution without being inadequate for its object. "It
is of the very utmost importance to the happiness of mankind
that they should not increase too fast ; but it does not appear
that the object to be accomplished would admit of any very
considerable diminution in the desire for marriage. It is
clearly the duty of each individual not to marry until he has
a prospect of supporting his children : but it is at the same
time to be wished that he should retain undiminished his de-
sire for marriacre, in order that he may exert himself to realise
100 THE LIFE AN]) WIMTINGS
this prospect, and be stimulated to make provision for the sup-
port of greater numbers.
" Our obligation not to marry till we have a fair prospect
b ing able to support our children will appear to deserve the-
attention of the moralist, if it can be proved that an attention
to these obligations is of more effect in the prevention of mis-
ery than all the other virtues combined ; and that if, in viola-
tion of this dut}^, it was the general custom to follow the first
impulse of nature, and marry at the age of pubert}^ the uni-
versal prevalence of every known virtue in the greatest con-
ceivable degree wonld fail of rescuing society from the most
wretched and deplorable state of want, and all the diseases-
and famines which usually accompany it."
In chapter ii.Mr. Malthus speaks of the effects which would
result to societ}^ from the prevalence of this virtue of moral
restraint. " No man whose earnings were only sufficient to
maintain two children, would put himself in a situation in
which he might have to maintain four or five, however he
might be prompted to it by the passion of love. The interval
between the age of puberty and the period at which each in-
dividual might venture to marry must, according to this view
be passed in strict chastity ; because the law of chastity can-
not be violated without producing evil. The effect of any-
thing like a promiscuous intercourse which prevents the birth
of children, is evidently to weaken the best affections of the-
heart, and in a very marked manner to degrade the female
character. And any other intercourse would, without imj^roper
arts, bring as many children into society as marriage, with a.
much greater probability of their becoming a burden to it."
The phrase, '* improper arts," is the only point on which
the so-styled Neo-Malthusians differ from Malthus. To his
modern disciples it seems abundantly proved, from the experi-
ence of France and elsewhere, that late marriage is not what
must be trusted to to check population ; but a restraint in the
size of families. Mr. Malthus, indeed, seems himself to recog-
nise the evils of late marriages, for he writes : " The late mar-
riages at present are, indeed, principall}^ confined to the men ;
and there are few, however advanced in life they may be, who,,
if they determine to marry, do not fix their choice on a very
young wift. A young woman, without fortune, when she^
has passed her twenty-fifth year, begins to fear, and with rea-
son, that she may lead a life of celibacy If women could
look forward with just confidence to marriage at twentj^-eight.
or thirty, I fully believe that, if the matter were left to them..
OF THOMAS It. MALTIIUS. 101
:for choice, they would clearly prefer waiting till this period,
to the being involved in all the cares of a large family at
twenty-five."
Lord Derby, some years ago, truly observed that great em-
perors did not like their subjects to be too well off. This
remark may have been a citation from Malthus, where he says:
"''The ambition of princes would want instruments of destruc-
tion, if the distresses of the lowei- classes of their subjects did
not drive them under their standards. A. recruitino; sero-eaut
always prays for a bad harvest and want of employment, or
iu other words, a redundant population." Mr. Malthus points
out that a society with a low birth rate will be extremely
powerful both in war and peace. One of the principal en-
couragements to an offensive war would be removed, and
there would be greater freedom from poh'tical dissensions at
home. " Indisposed to a war of offence, in a war of defence
such a society would be strong as a rock of adamant. Where
every family po.rsessed the necessaries of life or plenty, and a
decent portion of its comforts and couveniences, there could
not exist that hope of change, or at best that melancholy and
disheartening indifference to it, which sometimes prompts the
lower classes of people to say— Let what will come, we can-
not be worse off than we are now."
In chapter iii. Mr. Malthus speaks rather gloomily as ti
the prospect of Society adopting his recommendation of late
•marriages, " I believe (he says) that few of my readers can be
less sanguine of expectations of any great change in the
genei-al conduct of men on this subject than I am." He
proposes it, it seems, in order chiefly to vindicate the character
of the Deity ! This is at present known by all scientific
inquirers to be a fallacious argument; and we cannot but
contrast with our great author's vacillating doctrine, the clear
"in of duty laid down by the greatest of his followers, Mr.
J. S. Mill, when he says that the happiness of society is quite
attainable, if only it becomes a rule of morals that the pro-
duciug of large families in Europe should be looked upon as
^ vice.
" Almost everything that has hitherto been done for the poor
has tended, as if with solicitous care, to throw a veil of
■obscurity over this subject, and to hide from them the true
cause of their poverty. A man has always been told that to
raise up subjects for his king and country is a meritorious act.
In an etideavonr to raise the proportion of the quantity of
provisions to the number of consumers in any country, our
102 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
attention would naturally be first directed to the increasing of
the absolute quantity of provisions, but finding that, a&
fast as we did this, the numbers of consumers more than kept
pace with it, and that with all our exertions we were still as-
far as ever behind, we should be convinced that our efforts
directed in this way would never succeed. It would appear
to be setting the tortoise to catch the hare. Finding there-
fore, that from the laws of nature we could not proportion
the food to the population, our next attempt should naturally
be to proportion the population to the food. If we can per-
suade the hare to go to sleep, the tortoise may have some-
some chance of overtaking her."
In chapter iv., our author replies to some objections. Some-
of his critics had said that if his advice were followed, the
market would be rather understocked with labour. To this
Maltbus observes that " a market overstocked with labour,,
and an ample remuneration to each labourer, are objects per-
fectly incompatible with each other. In the annals of the-
world they have never existed together ; and to couple them
even in imagination betrays a gross ignorance of the simplest
principles of political economy." Mr. Malthus then replies-
to the oft repeated futuritj^ argument as follows : " I can
easily conceive that this country, with a proper direction of
the national industry-, might, in the course of some centuries^
contain two or three times its present population, and yet
every man in the kingdom be better paid and clothed than he-
is at present."
'• While the springs of industry continue in vigor, and a
sufficient part of that industry is directed to agriculture, we
need be under no apprehension of a deficient population ; and
nothing perhaps would tend so strongly to create a spirit of
industry and economy among the poor, as a thorough know-
ledge that their happiness must always depend principally
npon themselves ; and that if they obey their passions in
opposition to their reason, or be not industrious and frugal
while they are single men, and save a sum for the common
contingencies of the married state, they must expect to suffer
the natural evils which Providence has prepared for those
who disobey its admonitions."
This, then, is the main argument of our author ; but, as we
have seen, he fears lest he will not be listened to by the
masses, and also sees clearly enough that his advice to delay
the marriage day until funds have been reserved to meet all
demands on the married pair, is not unlikely to lead to otlier
OF THOMAS R. MALTIIUS. 103
evils. *' A third objection which may be started (he says) to
this plan, and the only one which appears to rae to bear any
kind of plausibility is, that by endeavoring to urge the duty
of moral restraint on the poor, we may increase the quantity
of sexual vice."
Malthus finds considerable difficulty in meeting this attack,
and few will be found who will be satisfied with the follow-
ing reply to this objection. " I should be extremely sorry to
say anything which could be either remotely or directly con-
strued unfavorably to the cause of virtue ; but I certainly
cannot think that the vices which relate to the sex are the
only vices which are to be considered in a moral question ; or
that they are even the greatest and most degrading to the
human character. They can rarely or never be committed
without producing such offences somewhere or other, and
therefore ought always to be strongly repudiated ; but there
are other vices, the effects of which are still more pernicious ;
and there are other situations which lead more certainly to
moral offences than the refraining from marriage."
All of this is beside the question ; and our author fell into
this kind of argument precisely because he had no experience
as we moderns have of marriage with small families. This
alone of all the alternatives gives the human race a chance of
comfort, love, and family joys. Were it the custom for all in
a country like England to consider it immoral to have a
family exceeding four children, there might doubtless be hope
that all might lead a virtuous life ; but Mr. Malthus' plan of
late marriage necessarily condemns many women to celibacy,
and, as he admits, tends to the degradation of numbers of
other women.
Our author continues : '^ Powerful as may be the tempta-
tions to a breach of chastity, I am inclined to think that they
are impotent, in comparison with the temptations arising
from continued distress. A large class of women and many
men, I have no doubt, pass a considerable part of their lives
in chastity ; but I believe there will be found very few who
pass through the ordeal of squalid and hopeless poverty, or
even of long-continued embarrassed circumstances without a
considerable degradation of character Add to this that
squalid poverty, particularly when joined with idleness, is a
state the most unfavorable to character that can well be con-
ceived. The passion is as strong, or nearly so, as in other
situations, and every restraint on it from personal respect
or a sense of morality is generally removed. There is a degree
104 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
of pqnalid poverty in which, if a girl was brought up, I
should say that her being really modest at twenty was an
absolute miracle. Those persons must have extraordinary
minds indeed, and such as are not usually found under
similar circumstances, who can continue to respect themselves
when no other person whatever respects them. If the
children thus brought up were even to marry at twenty, it is
prol)able that they would have passed some years in vicious
habits before that period."
Had Mr. Malthus been alive at this moment, and travelled
as he did in his lifetime through the rural districts of France,
he would have been the first to admit that the French have
given the only solution of the problem he states so clearly,
that has ever been given by any nation.
" If (says our author) statesmen will not encourage late
marriages, but rather the opposite, then to act consistently
they should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly en-
deavoring to impede, the operations of nature in causing a
great infantile mortality. Instead of recommending cleanli-
ness to the poor, they should cultivate contrar}^ habits. If
by these and similar means, the annual mortality were in-
creased from 1 in 36 or 40, to 1 in 18 or 20, we might
probably every one of us marry at the age of puberty, and
yet few be absolutely starved. If, however, we all marry at
this age, and yet still continue our exertions to impede the
operations of nature, we may rest assured that all our efforts
will be vain. Nature will not, and cannot be defeated in her
j)urposes. The necessary mortality must come, in some form
or other: and the extirpation of one disease will only be the
signal for the birth of another perhaps more fatal. We can-
not lower the waters of rivers by pressing them down in
different places, which must necessarily make them rise some-
where else ; the only way in which we can hope to effect our
purpose is by drawing them off."
" In a country which keeps up its population at a certain
standard, if the average number of marriages and births be
given, it is evident that the average number of deaths will
also be given : and to use Dr. Heberden's metaphor, the
channels through which the stream of mortality is constantly
flowing will always convey off a given quantit}-. Now, if we
stop up any of these channels, it must be perfectly clear that
the stream of mortality must run with greater force through
some of the other channels : that is, if we eradicate some dis-
eases, others will become proportionally more fatal."
OF THOMAS U. MALTIIUS. 105
" Dr. Tleberrlen, (says Malthns) draws a striking picture
•of the favorable change observed in the health of the people
of England, and greatly attributes it to the improvements
which have gradually taken place, not only in London but in
all great tou^ns ; and in the manner of living throughout the
kingdom, particularly in respect to cleanliness and ventila-
'tion. But these causes would not have produced the effect
observed, if they had not been accompanied by an increase of
the preventive check ; and probably the spread of cleanliness,
and better mode of living, which then began to prevail, by
spreading more generally a decent and useful pride, principally
-contributed to this increase. The diminution in the number
of marriages, however, was not sufficient to make up for the
great decrease of mortality, from the extinction of the plague,
and the striking reduction of the deaths from the dysentery.
While these, and some other diseases became evanescent, con-
sumption, palsy, apoplexy, gout, lunacy and the small-pox
became more mortal. The widening of these drains was
necessary to carry off the population which still remained
redundant, notwithstanding the increased operation of the
preventive check, and the part which was annualh' disposed
•of, and enabled to subsist by the increase of agriculture."
Mr. Malthus then adds : '' For ray own part, I feel not the
■slightest doubt, that if the introduction of the cow-pox should
extirpate the small-pox, and yet the number of marriages con-
tinue the same, we shall find a very perceptible difference in
the increased mortality of some other diseases. Nothing could
prevent this effect but a sudden start in our agriculture : and
:should this take place, which I fear we have not much reason
to expect, it will not be owing to the number of children
saved from death by the cow-pox inoculations, but to the
alarms occasioned among the people of property' by the late
^scarcities, and to the increased gains of farmers, which have
been so absurdly reprobated. T am strongly, however, inclined
to believe, that the nuniber of marriages will not in this case
remain the same ; but that the gradual light which may be
expected to be thrown on this interesting topic of human in-
quiry, will teach us how to make the extinction of a mortal
disorder, a real blessing to us, and a real improvement in
the general health and happiness of the society."
In these admirable remarks Malthus points out that when-
■ever we make improvements in the science of health, we must
be contented to lessen the birth-rate, if we would really secure
the benefits we might expect. Thus, if drainage, good water
106 THE LIFE ANP WRITINGS
Bupply, and the extirpation of fevers are to be of service to
us, it must be that we are determined to have fewer children.
For, if we have an equally high birth-rate, and no great
addition to our food supplies from abroad or from our own
soil, we must die inevitably of some other chronic, although
different, maladies than those produced by bad drainage and
fevers, or small- pox. In no case can we have a birth-rate of
40 per 1,000 in an old country, without a high death-rate.
CHAPTEE XII.
IN Chapter VI. of Book IV. Mr. Malthus treats of the-
effects of the knowledge of the principal cause of poverty
on Civil Liberty, observing at the outset that it may appear
to some that a doctrine which attributes the greatest part of
the sufferings of the lower classes of society exclusively to
themselves, is unfavorable to the cause of liberty, affording^
it may be said, a tempting opportunity to governments of
oppressing their subjects at pleasure, and laying all the blame-
on the improvident habits of the poor. Our author contends
that, on the other hand, the pressure of distress on the lower
classes of ueople, with the habit of attributing the distress
to their rulers, appears to him to be the rock of defence, the-
castle and the guardian spirit of despotism, affording as it
does to the tyrant the unanswerable plea of necessity.
" The patriot who might be called upon hj the love of his-
country to join with heart and hand in a rising of the people
for some specific attainable object or reform, if he knew that
they were enlightened respecting their own situation, and:
would stop short when the\' had attained their demand, would
be called upon by the same motion to submit to very great
opposition rather than give the slightest countenance to a
popular tumult, the members of which, at least the greatest
number of them, were persuaded that the destruction of the
Parliament, the Lord Mayor, and the monopoly would make
bread cheap, and that a revolution would enable them all tO'
support their families. In this case it is more the ignorance
and delusion of the lower classes of people that occasions the
023pression, than the actual disposition of the government to-
tyranny."
Mr. Malthus observes that the circulation of Paine's Rights
of Man was said to have done great mischief among the lower
OF TIIO.MAS R. MALTIIUS. lOT
and middle classes in this country : and that might be true ;
but that was because Mr. Paine in many important points had
shown himself totally unacquainted with the structure of
society, and the different moral effects to be expected from the-
physical difference between this country and America. Mobs-
of the same description as those collections of people known,
by that name in Europe could not at that day exist in America.
The number of people without property was, then, at that
time, from the physical state of the country, comparatively
small : and therefore the civil power which was needed to
protect property, did not require to be so large. Mr. Paine
argued that the real cause of riots was always want of happi-
ness, and maintained that such was always due to something
being wrong in the system of Government. But this is
evidently not always the case. The redundant population of
an old state furnishes materials for unhappiness, unknown to
such a state of that of America.
Nothing would so effectually counteract the mischief caused
by Mr. Paine's Rights of Man (says our author), as a general
knowledge of our true rights. " What these rights are, it is
not now my business to explain : but there is one right which
man has generally been thought to possess, which I am con-
fident he neither does nor can possess, a right to subsistence
when his labor will not fairly purchase it. Our laws (in 1806)'
indeed say that he has this right, and bind the society to-
furnish employment and food to them who cannot get them
in the regular market ; but in so doing they attempt to reverse
the laws of nature ; and it is in consequence to be expected,
not only that they should fail in their object, but that the
poor who were intended to be benefited should suffer most
cruelly from this inhuman deceit which is practised upon,
them."
Malthus adds that the Abbe Eaynal had said that before
all other social laws, man has a right to subsistence. " He
might just as well have said that every man had a right to live
100 years. Yes ! He has a right to do so, if he can. Good
social laws enable truly a greater number of people to exist
than could without them ; but neither before nor since the-
institution of social laws can an unlimited number exist.
Consequently, as it is impossible to feed all that might be born^
it is disgraceful to promise to do so.
'* If the great truths on these subjects were more generally^
circulated, and the lower classes could be convinced that by^
the laws of nature, independently of any particular institution^
108 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
except the great one of property, which is absolutely
necessary in order to attain any considerable produce, no
person has any claim or riohi on society for subsistence, if his
labor will not purchase it, the greatest part of the mischievous
■declamation on the unjust institutions of society would fall
powerless to the ground. If the real causes of their misery
were shown to the poor, and they were taught to know how
small a part of their present distress was attributable to
government, discontent would be far less common.
" Again — Remove all fear from the tyranny or folly of the
people, and the tyranny of government could not stand a
moment. It would then appear in its proper deformity,
without palliation, without pretext, without protection.
'* Grood governments are chiefly useful to the poorer classes,
by giving them a clearer view of the necessity of some
preventive check to population. And in despotic govern-
ments it is usually found that the checks to population arise
more from the sickness and mortality consequent on poverty,
ihan from any such preventive check."
Mr. Malthus contends that *'the most successful support-
ers of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers
who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all
the evils to which societj' is subject, to human institutions
and the iniquity of governments. The falsity of these accusa-
tions, and the dreadful consequences that would result from
their being generally admitted and acted upon, make it
absolutely necessary that they should at all events be resisted :
not only on account of the immediate revolutionary horrors
to be expected from a movement of the people acting under
such impressions, a consideration which must at all times
have very great weight, but on account of the extreme pro-
bability that such a revolution would soon terminate in a much
worse despotism than that which it had destroyed. What-
ever may be, therefore, the intention of those indiscriminate
accusations against governments, their real effect undoubtedly
is to add a weight of talents and principles to the prevailing
power which it would never have received otherwise."
** Under a government constructed upon the best and purest
principles, and executed by men of the highest talents and
integrity, the most squalid poverty and wretchedness might
universally prevail from an inattention to the prudential check
to population, and as this cause of unhappiness has hitherto
been so little understood, that the efforts of society have
always tended rather to aggravate than to lessen it, we have
OF THOMAS R. MALTIIUS. 10^
the strongest reason for supposing that in all the governments
with which we are acquainted, a great part of the misery to
be observed among the lower classes of the people arises from
this cause."
The inference, therefore, which Mr. Godwin, and in latter
days Mr. Hyndman and the Democratic Federation, have
drawn against governments from the unhappiness of the
people is palpably unfair, and before we give a sanction to
such accusations, it is a debt we owe to truth and justice, to
ascertain how much of this unhappiness arises from the prin-
ciple of population, and how much is fairly to be attributed
to government. When this distinction has been properly
made, and all the vague, indefinite, and false accusations
removed, government would remain, as it ought to be, clearl}^
responsible for the rest, and the amount of this would still be
such as to make the responsibility very considerable. *' Though
government has but little power in the direct relief of poverty,,
yet its indirect influences on the prosperity of its subjects is
striking and incontestible. And the reason is, that though it
is comparatively impotent in its efforts to make the food of a
country keep pace with an unrestricted increase of population,
yet its inflnence is great in giving the best direction to those
checks, which in some form or other must necessarily take-
place."
The first great requisite, says Mr. Malthus, to the growth
of prudential habits is the perfect security of property, and
the next perhaps is that respectability and importance which
is given to the lower classes by equal laws, and the possession
of some influence in the framing of them. The more excel-
lent, then, is the government, the more does it tend to generate
that prudence and elevation of sentiment by which alone in
the present state of our being can poverty be avoided.
Mr, Malthus was greatly opposed to despotic government ;
and he remarks that it has been sometimes asserted, that the
only reason why it is advantageous that the people should
have some share in the government, is that a representation
of the people tends best to secure the framing of good and
equal laws ; but that if the same object could be obtained under
a despotism, the same advantage would accrue to the com-
munity. If, however, the representative system, by securing
to the lower classes of society a more equal and liberal mode
of treatment from their superiors, gives to each individual a
greater ])ersonal respectabilit}'' and a greater fear of personal
degradation, it is evident that it will powerfully co-operat©
110 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
with the security of property in aniruating the exertions of
industry, and in generating habits of jDrudence, and thus more
powerfully tend to increase the riches and prosperity of the
lower classes of the community, tbau if the same laws had
•existed under a despotism.
But, says our author, though the tendenc}^ of a free consti-
tution and a good government to diminish poverty is certain,
yet its effect in this way must necessarily be indirect and
slow, and very different from the immediate and direct relief
which the lower classes of people are too frequently in the
habit of looking forward to as the consequences of a revolu-
tion. This habit of expecting too much, and the irritation
occasioned by disappointment, continually give a wrong direc-
tion to their efforts in favor of liberty, and continually tend
to defeat the accomplishment of those gradual reforms in
.government, and that slow amelioration of the lowest classes
of society, which are really attainable.
The following passage might be well studied in these dayg
■of proposed schemes for land confiscation and communism.
" It is of the very highest importance, therefore, to know dis-
tinctly what government cannot do, as well as what it can do.
If I were called upon to name the cause which, in my con-
ception, had more than any other contributed to the very slow
progress of freedom, so disheartening to everj' liberal mind,
I should say that it was the confusion that had existed respect-
ing the causes of the unhappiness and discontent which pre-
vail in society : and the advantage which governments had
been able to take, and indeed had been compelled to take, of
this confusion, to confirm and strengthen their power. I
cannot help thinking, therefore, that a knowledge generally
■circulated, that the principal cause of want and unhappiness is
only indirectly connected with government, and totally beyond
its power to remove ; and that it depends upon the conduct
of the poor themselves, would, instead of giving any advan-
tage to government, give a great additional weight to the
popular side of the question, by removing the danger with
which from ignorance it is at present accompanied ; and these
tend in a very jDOwerful manner to promote the cause of
rational freedom."
Mr. J. S. Mill, who was more of a Socialist than Mr.
Malthus and a greater optimist, admits that it would be
possible for the State to ensure employment at ample wages
to all that are born. But, he adds, if it does this, it is bound
in self-protection, and for every purpose for which the State
OP THOMAS R. MALTHUS. IH
exists, to see that no one should be born without its consent.
That is, ne seems to favor the framing of a statute directed
against the production of large families.
In suggesting that it would be possible for the State to en-
sure employment at ample wages to all that are born, if it only-
takes care that too many shall not be born, Mr. Mill differs
a good deal from Mr. Malthus and from many of the laissez
/aire economists of the school of Adam kSmith. Persons who
are great admirers of individual liberty confound, as is very
often the case, the idea of freedom with that of the right to do
wrong. It is quite clear that if in an old country , such as any
of the European States, all classes of society were to engender
as many children as is now done by the poorest and most
thoughtless members, poverty would become as universal as it
formerly was, when mankind were less civilised and had a
very low standard of comfort. Mr. Mill and those who follow
him in this contention, among whom is to be reckoned the
author of the " Elements of Social Science," affirm that, although
it is quite true that a grown up man or woman should be
perfectly free to live his or her own life so far a"? relates to
€elf-regarding actions, it is a confusion of ideas to style the
bringing into life of another human being, an act purely self-
regarding. When a country is over-peopled, or threatened
with that greatest of all calamities, the production, it is held
by these able writers, of more than a very small number of
children by any couple is a gross offence against all who gain
their living by toil, since the over-crowding of a country with
human beings makes it very difficult for those at the bottom
of society to get enough even of the coarsest food for them-
selves and their families, whilst life is rendered harder for all
who have to gain it by services of any kind. The number of
children to a family among the richer classes in France appears
now to be on an average not quite two to a family : whereas
the poorer classes in Paris and some of the less thoughtful
districts of France have families of more than six on an
average. London now exhibits the notable fact that, whereas
in the comfortable parishes of Kensington, St. George Hanover.
Square, St. James Westminster, and Hampstead, the birth-rate
in 1886 was not much above 21 per 1000 inhabitants annually ;
in the poor parishes of Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, St. George
in the East, and Whitechapel the birth-rate was 38-6 per 1000
in that year, i.e., nearly twice as many children are born of
1000 persons in the poor quarters as in the rich. As a con-
sequence of this, the death-rate in the East End is to that in
112 THE LIFE AND WRITIi^GS
the West End as 3 to 2. Mr. Mill, and in this I entirely concur
with him, thinks that the State can and ought to discourage
the production of large families by some social stigma, and the
author of the '' Elements of Social Science " thinks that some
fine might be the penalty for the production of more than
four children by any married pair. This he looks upon as a
far juster way of checking rapid birth-rates than the Continental
plan of preventing the poorest persons from marrying, since-
it is not marriage, he observes, but the production of large
families, that the State ought to endeavor to guard against.
The mere discussion in the House of Commons of such a pro-
position would do an immense deal of good in this and in all
European States, since the poorer classes are generally anxious
enough to do their duty, if they oii]y knew what that duty
was. Of course any penalty for the production of a large
family should fall equally on the rich and the poor, since the
miseries inflicted by the well-to-do parent, who produces a.
large family, on his helpless and innocent offspring, in the
shape of life long celibacy, may fairly be compared with the
want of food which such conduct causes among the poor.
And any penalty ought to be very small, because, if not ^so,.
persons might be led to practise criminal abortion or infanti-
cide, practices most inimical to the welfare and even the ex-
istence of society.
The existence of the Malthusian theory of population was
greatly obscured during the greater part of this century by
the writings of the Free Traders, many of whom, in common
with the illustrious leaders of the movement, Messrs. Cobden
and Bright, thought that by means of the free importation of
food, poverty might be entirely put an end to. It was said by
some of the most enthusiastic speakers against the Corn Laws,.
that if they were but abolished, the workhouses would soon-
disappear ; and the United Kingdom would be filled with a
numerous and contented population. This shows how little-
these eminent men had considered the immense power of
multiplication of the human race. As Mr. Malthus said, the-
power of increasing production is, to the power of reproduction,
as the speed of a tortoise is to that of a hare. The tortoise
can only overtake the hare if the swifter animal fall asleep.
Hence, free trade, however admirable in itself, has but little
influence on the life of the poorest inhabitants of an over-
crowded country. The share they get of the productions of
the world will always be most meagre, so long as they increase
so rapidly in number by producing families of ten or fifteen:
OP THOMAS R. MALTHUS. 113
children, and thus courting the positive check of the lower
animals.
Soon after Mr. Malthus wrote his essay, it began to be noticed
that in France families were much smaller, among the respect-
able classes, than they were iu England ; and Mr. Francis
Place wrote a pamplilet in which he pointed this out and re-
commended the plan in place of the preventive check of late
marriages. His pamphlet and remarks had much influence on
the celebrated Robert Owen, and it is said that the latter
philanthropist made known Place's views to his workmen at
New Lanark, in Scotland, and it was on that account that that
famous socialistic experiment succeeded so well. Mr. Robert
Dale Owen, son of Robert Owen, emigrated to the United
States and was ambassador to Europe from that country for
some years. His pamphlet entitled " Moral Physiology " was
a most eloquent plea for parental prudence, or early marriages
and small families. That pamphlet was written subsequently
to one written by Mr. Richard Oarlile, entitled " Every
Woman's Book," and also to Dr. Charles Knowlton of Boston's
work, written in 1833, entitled the " Fruits of Philosophy."
This last work, in company with those of Owen, Carlile,
and Austin Holyoake, which last was called *' Large and Small
Families," were sold openly for some forty years in London
and elsewhere, chiefly by the Secular party. In the year 1876,
the " Fruits of Philosophy " was attacked as an obscene pub-
lication under a new Act of Parliauient, called " Lord Camp-
bell's Act," and a Bristol bookseller named Cook was sentenced
to two years' imprisonment for selling it. Mr. Charles Watts,
the London publisher of the work, was also prosecuted ; but,
on his submission, he was allowed to get free with the pay-
ment of costs. This did not suit the views of the more
chivalrous of the Secularist party, and accordingly Mr. Charles
Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant, the leaders of that party in
England, issued the work again with a preface, and invited
the authorities to prosecute them. The "Fruit? of Philosophy "
was sold openly at 28, Stonecutter Street, London, and as the
City authorities prosecuted, the case was sent up for trial to
the Queen's Bench, where it was tried before the Lord Chief
Justice Cockburn in June, 1877. The details of this most
interesting of all trials are to be found in a work published
by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, which should be perused by all
who wish to understand how our liberties are gradually ac-
quired. Mr. Bradlaugh, in his admirable speech, maintained
that the advocacy of all checks to population is lawful, except
114 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
such as advise the destruction of the foetus in utero, or the
child after birth. The Lord Chief Justice admitted the truth
of the principle of population, and summed up most favorably
to the defendants ; but the jury being quite new to the ques-
tion, gave the following verdict : " We are unanimously of
opinion that the book in question is calculated to deprave
public morals ; but at the same time we entirely exonerate
the defendants from any corrupt motives in publishing it."
It turned out that the indictment was faulty ; and, on appeal
to a higher court, the defendants were set free from the fine
and imprisonment imposed on them by Chief Justice Cockburn,
which he sentenced them to becau>e they went on selling the
pamphlet. In the year 1877 the Malthusian League, a society
for the propagation of Malthusian literature, was inaugurated.
In February, 1878, Mr. Edward T/ uelove, bookseller, of Hol-
born, London, was prosecuted by the authorities of the City of
London, for the publication of the Hon. R. D. Owen's pam-
phlet "Moral Physiology." and another pamphlet entitled
*' Individual. Family, and Natioual Poverty." His case was
admirably defended by Mr. William Hunter, and Mr. Truelove
was set free ; but a second trial took place shortly after this
at the Old Bailey, and the jury then gave a verdict of guilty,
on which the judge sentenced the defendant to a fine of £200
and a period of four months' imprisonment. Fortunately, Mr.
Truelove's health was excellent, and he supported his period
of imprisonment without injury, emerging from his prison a
hero to all those who understand the immense value of the
cause for which he suffered. No further trials have taken
place of such works in London, although Mrs. Annie Besant's
new pamphlet, the " Law of Population," and others have had
a quite enormous sale of recent years. In the North of Eng-
land and in Scotland, there is still a remnant of the old
persecuting spirit, for a travelling hawker named Mr. William-
son has been imprisoned at Goole and in Lincolnshire for
selling Mrs. Besant's pamphlet in 1887. In the same year
Dr. Henry Aithur Allbutt of Leeds, published a medical work
called "The Wife's Handbook," which gave details of how
the size of a family might be controlled by married people ;
and the Eoyal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1887
summoned him in March to come up in three months time,
to show cause why he should not be deprived of his diploma
for this act of common humanity. A host of protests and
petitions were at once despatched to the Fellows of the College,
bhowing them the gross wickedness of this action of theirs ;
0^ I'lIOMAS R. MaLTHUS. 116
nnd the consequence of this wns that up to July, 1887, Dr.
H. Arthur Allbntt. had heard nothing more of this atrocious
[)er.-ecntion by the governing body of a noble profession
against one of its members for telling the poor how to get rid
'if poverty. Hopes are entertained that not only may that
body of [)hy8icians withdraw its opposition to Dr. H. A. All-
butt's work ; but that they may even see fit to act the generous
part, and, whilst confessing their error, ask for forgiveness
from outraged humanity.
.»,. ? ... - : ^
^ppcnMjc.
At the Annual Meeting of the Malthusian League in May,
1887, held in London at the South Place Institute, Finsbury,
Dr. Charles E. Drysdale, President of the Malthusian
League, read the Presidential Address, which contained the
following passages : —
To that objection to the Neo-Malthusian propaganda which is
usually successful with timid people, that incontinence would
be increased if the means recommended by New-Malthusians
\^-^re adopted, Mr. Place says : "I am of opinion it would
not ; so much depends on manners, that it seems to be by no
n-.-r-diib an unreasonable expectation that, if these were so im-
proved as greatly to increase the prudential habits, and to en-
con.-age the love of distinction, the master-spring of public
prosperity, and if, in consequence of the course recommended,
all could marry early, there would be less debauchery of any
kind. An improvement in manners would be an improvement
in morals ; and it seems absurd to suppose an increase of vice
with improved morals."
Mr. James Mill, a friend of Mr. Place, writing also in 1820,
(article " Colony," Encyclop. BriL) speaks of the question of
checking population rationally as ** the most important prac-
tical problem to which the wisdom of the politician and the
moralist can be applied." '* If," he says, "the superstitions
of the nursery were discarded, and the principles of utility
kept steadily in view, a solution might not be difficult to be
found, and the means of drying up one of the most copious
sources of human evil — a source wliich, if all other sources of
evil were taken away, would alone suffice to retain the great
mass of human beings in misery, might be seen to be neither
doubtful nor difficult to be applied,"
l\lr. Francis Place and Mr. James Mill exhibited in th^se
utteiances one of the qualities of true men of science — that is,
they were enabled to foretell truly what has takt-n place before
the end of the century' in civilised countries like England and
Fr;ince. The truth of their prophecies is shown in the fact
tliat the inhabitants of France, who, at the commenccnieiit of
this century, had a biith-rate of 33 children aniiuall_\ }t"r 1"00
of inhabitants, have now one of 26 per 1000; wh le the West
(11?)
^iuA of London shows a still lower birth-rate than this — in
Kensington of 20, in St. George, Hanover Square, of 19, and
in Ilampstead Parish of 22 per 1000. In France, the low
birth-rate is due, as every intelligent person now knows, to
to Neo-Malthusian practices and not to celibacy, for Fiance
contains, in every 1000 inhabitants, 140 married women be-
tween the ages of fifteen and fifty, against 133 in this country
and under 128 in Prussia. This prudence among the French
population, since the time of the French Revolution, seems to
have been due to a certain extent to the acquisition of landed
property by the masses of the population, and also to the law
of equal inheritance i a France, which prohibits parents from
leaving their real or personal estates to one person. The ex-
treme desire to keep the land in the hands of a few descend-
ants has made the more respectable of the French peasants
the most careful of Europeans. Thus we find, from an essay
by the late Dr. Bertiilon, that in the thirty departments of
France where there are the greatest number of proprietors of
land, 285 per 1000 inhabitants, the birth-rate is only 24*7,
against 28-1 in those departments where there are only 177
proprietors per 1000 of the population. The professional
classes in France are so thoughtful in regard to the number of
children they bring into the world, that they do not have
quite two children (1*75) to a family ; whilst the average
children to a family in France does not exceed 3, against 5 in
Germany, 4| in England, 5|- in Scotland, and 5^ in poor and
distressed Ireland. How true it is, then, what James Mill
and Mr. Francis Place predicted !
Universally we may say of modern Europeans, that the
poorer classes are less prudent in the size of their families ;
and, indeed, it has been said by M. de Haussonville ("La vie
et les salaires a Paris ") that the number of children to a family
in the poor quarters of Paris is three times as great as it is in
the rich quarters. The same story holds nearly true in mod-
ern London since 1877 — i.e., since the date of the trial of Mr.
Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant ; for the birth-rate
in Kensington is at present 20 per 1000, against 40 per 1000
in Bethnal Green, a result which is yearly becoming due rather
to small families in the West End than to late marriages or
celibacy, the old-fashioned causes of lower birth-rates. The
celebrated cases of " Regina v. Bradlaugh and Besant," " Be-
gina V. Edward Truelove," and, at this moment, of the Royal
College of Physicians of Edinburgh against the esteemed and
learned physician. Dr. H. A. Allbutt, of Leeds, who is threat-
(118^
ened by that body with expulsion from the list of its members,
because he has published, in a popular work of a practical
character, what has been said so many times, that large fami-
lies lead to early death, prostitution, and every horror to which
mortality is subject, have disclosed the fact that there is an
idea strongly implanted in the minds of the majority of man-
kind, that, if people in general knew, especially at an early
age, what any medical student knows as soon as he commences
to study anatomy and physiology, vice and profligacy would
immediately abound. This is, indeed, a strange idea. Civil-
isation differs from savage life mainly in that civilised men
know more of nature than savages ; but, just on that very ac-
count, civilised people are more moral than savages. " It is
impossible for us to understand," says M. Joseph Gamier,
** how the counsels of marital prudence can lead to the aboli-
tion of marriage and the debauchery of the young. Has not
prudence the effect of rendering the state of marriage more
happy and more attractive ? Youth is encouraged to marriage
more easily by the example of prosperous and wisely managed
households than by the example of households crushed under
the tortures of misery." And M. Villerm^, one of the greatest
writers on Health that this century has produced, mentions
that the workmen of La Croix Rouge, Lyons, had, in his day,
an average of only 3J children to a family ; and that " these
workmen were the foremost in France for behavior and dig-
nity of character.'-' " The question is," says a distinguished
Vice-President of the Malthusian League, Mr. Van Houten,
Deputy at the Hague, " whether morality can demand that a
married couple shall have offspring immediately after their
marriage ; that constantly, as soon as the mother, after giving
birth to one, is able, a second one should at once succeed the
first. The question is, whether those less blessed with worldly
goods must restrain their desires and remain celibates, because
they are unable, while following the traditional morality, to
provide for a familj^ ? Or whether those whose inclination
for one another, or whose trust in the future was too gieat when
their expectations proved decei)tive, must be condemned, in
the name of morality-, to procreate children who will be in-
sufficiently fed, tended and educated, and can never become
energetic citizens, or who, if sickly, are born only to descend
speedily to the grave, to be succeeded by others equally un-
fortunrite."' Mr. Van Houten truly sajs : " An end must be
put to our ignorance of physiology. Everyone ought to knoivj
and it must be left to his own requirements and to his own
judgment what use he will make of his knowledge."
(119)
How dacgerous such superstitions as those referred to by Mr.
Van Houten are to the happiness of mankind is best seen in
the old civilisations of Hindostan and China. Owing to cer-
tain strange doctrines in those countries as to the importance
©f children as a religious duty, the unfortunate Hindoo people
are so terribly over-peopled that a man will work hard for
wages equivalent to six shillings a month. The most learned
of Italian medical writers on health, Senator Paulo Mantegazza,
mentions that his work was placed on the Index by the Pope
of Rome in 1863, because he had ventured to recommend to
persons afflicted with hereditary disease, such as insanity or
epilepsy, or to excessively poor people, to marry but to have
as few children as possible. When two human beings (says
that author) love each other, and yet from the bad health of
one or both of them there is every likelihood that diseased
children will result, is it a greater fault to engender epileptic,
insane, or scrofulous children, or to prevent such births ? Or
when, from the excessive increase of the family itself, human
beings are brought into the world almost inexorably con-
demned to hunger, to degradation, to disease, is it a greater
sin to limit the number of children or to increase the sufferings
of the human family ? " What reply ought we to give ?
Whilst the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh is dis-
playing to the denizens of the end of the 19th century, an
amount of ignorance and conventional bigotry which will be
incredible to the next generation, it is remarkable that what
is usually considered the most benighted Church in Christen-
dom, the Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church, has latterly
shown evident signs of admitting thatNeo-Malthusian practices,
which are so habitually made use of in France, must at least
be acknowledged to be morally innocent. Thus, in 1870, the
Vatican Council was implored by a French priest, Dr. Fried-
rich, to reconsider its judgment on conjugal prudence : " and
not to cause the damnation of so many millions of souls by
letting the directors (confessors) lay upon their consciences,
commands or prohibitions impossible to observe. It will be
our duty (he exclaims) to search in the holy books alone
for condemnation of the act in question ; if it be found to
be forbidden neither by the decalogue nor by the other laws of
God contained in Holy Writ, nor by the apostles, nor by the
commands of the Church assembled in Council General, nor
by the Pope speaking ex cathedra, we shall say it (conjugal
prudence) cannot be condemned by anyone " Dr. Friedrich
continues : " A learned and holy devotee of a very austere
Order says : * I have studied this case with all the powers of
ray intelligence and of my conscience, and I have corae to this
formal conviction, that we are on the wrong track. To my
mind, this act is enormously below the smallest mortal sin,
and it is enormously lessened by all the motives that provoke
it, real motives of health, even of interest, of family, &c.' ''
Lastly, he informs us that Rome has enjoined on confessors to
question very little and to dwell as little as possible upon this
subject. Surely, afier this, the Royal College of Physicians of
Edinburgh might hesitate ! What Rome has done, other
churches might surely do ; and I am plea^^ed to say that many
excellent members of the Englis;h Establishment are inclined
to side with the Malthusian League in its earnest recommenda-
tion to all classes of the community to replace the heartrending
positive checks to population — war, pestilence, and famine —
and the torturing agonies of prolonged celibacy, which Dr.
Bertillon's statistics show to be so inimical even to longevity,
by the far more humane and rational plan of early marriage
conjoined with very much smaller families than are at the pre-
sent time the fashion among all classes. Some check to popu-
lation we must submit to ; and there is not the slightest doubt
in my own mind that the morality of the near future will look
upon the production of large families in European states as the
most anti-social of all the actions of a citizen. Then, and not
till then, will indigence disappear from the face of all civilised
society.
3 1158 00693 4177
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